in yet another act of DOE eclectisism, DOE to buy IBM NUKE simulator for $85M. Justin, did they pass on Cray because it's a general purpose machine, and this is obviously a dedicated box?
vincent
DOE Tags IBM for Superfast Computer
by Chris Oakes
3:35pm 12.Feb.98.PST
The Department of Energy says it wants computer
simulation to replace real-world nuclear weapons testing.
But first it needs more calculations per second. Lots more.
To that end, the agency has called on IBM to build a
supercomputer capable of trillions of calculations per
second. IBM has signed an $85 million contract with both
the DOE and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The agency expects the agreement, announced by Secretary
of Energy Federico Pena in Washington today, to result in an
eight-fold increase in the level of simulation detail.
The computer will be a member of IBM's RS/6000 SP
family - the technology behind Deep Blue's victory over
chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. It will be capable of 10
trillion calculations per second, IBM said, and will be
installed at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in 2000.
"Only two years ago, no one believed that computers of this
speed would be possible," Pena said. If computers replace
nuclear testing, he said the nation "can enter into a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the agreement to end
nuclear testing worldwide."
As a component of the DOE's Accelerated Strategic Computing
Initiative, such "tera-scale" computing speed will enable
complex modeling and simulation - enough to ensure the
reliability of the nuclear stockpile without actual testing,
according to the DOE.
By way of a dramatic comparison, IBM said 10 trillion
calculations per second means calculating in one second
what would now take ten million years on a hand-held
calculator.
IBM said the technology emerging from the project will be
incorporated into future commercial RS/6000 products.
With such computing power, IBM said, industries including
the automotive, aerospace, and medical industries could also
replace traditional experimentation and prototyping with
computer simulation. |
