IBM
Roadrunner: supercomputer breaks petaflop barrier
June 17, 2008 A collaboration between IBM and the Los Alamos National Laboratory has resulted in the world's fastest supercomputer. Roadrunner can run at speeds above the "petaflop barrier" of 1,000 trillion operations per second, making it twice as fast as IBM's Blue Gene/L™ and opening up an era of science at a previously unseen scale. Read More
IBM’s new BladeCenter QS22
May 19, 2008 IBM has expanded its High Performance Computing (HPC) capabilities for businesses with the introduction their new BladeCenter QS22 - a new, economical supercomputing technology inspired by advanced scientific research facilities. The heart of the QS22 is the multi-core IBM PowerXCell 8i processor, a new generation processor based on the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) Architecture, which is compliant with the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) Architecture, originally developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba to provide the computing power for cutting-edge gaming applications. For challenging arithmetic operations the IBM PowerXCell 8i offers five-times the speed of the original Cell/B.E. processor and, coupled with additions like 16-times more memory (up to 32GB) than its predecessors, the QS22 can handle workloads that previously required dozens of servers. Read More
Shrinking supercomputers: IBM optical modulator promises processing breakthrough
December 6, 2007 IBM scientists have announced a breakthrough that could lead to a new generation of supercomputers that squeeze the processing power of today's giants into the form factor of a laptop. The research is based on the use of a light pulses sent through silicon instead of electrical signals on wires which make up conventional computer chips and also promises incredibly energy efficient processors that would expend only the energy of a light bulb to achieve what current supercomputers do with enough power to run hundreds of homes.
IBM closes in on petaflop barrier
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November 14, 2007 Astronomical figures abound in the world of supercomputing and the numbers have just become even more astounding with IBM continuing its four-year domination of the official TOP500 Supercomputer Sites List with a new world record courtesy of the Blue Gene/L supercomputer. Although the Blue Gene/L, located at the Lawrence Livermore national Laboratory in California, has held the number one position since November 2004, the system was significantly expanded this summer to deliver a sustained performance of 478 trillion calculations per second (478 “teraflops”). Read More
Nanotech breakthrough promises single-atom data storage and molecular computers
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IBM today announced two major scientific achievements in the field of nanotechnology that could one day lead to new kinds of devices and structures built from a few atoms or molecules. Such Lilliputian, atomic-scale devices might be used as future computer chips, storage devices, sensors and for applications nobody has imagined yet. The work will be unveiled tomorrow in two reports being published by the journal Science. In the first report, IBM scientists describe major progress in probing a property called magnetic anisotropy in individual atoms. This fundamental measurement has important technological consequences because it determines an atom’s ability to store information. Previously, nobody had been able to measure the magnetic anisotropy of a single atom. Read More
IBM unleashes World's Fastest Chip
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May 22, 2007 IBM today simultaneously launched the fastest microprocessor ever built and an ultra-powerful new computer server that leverages the chip’s many breakthroughs in energy conservation and virtualization technology. The new server is the first ever to hold all four major benchmark speed records for business and technical performance. At 4.7 GHz, the dual-core POWER6 processor doubles the speed of the previous generation POWER5 while using nearly the same amount of electricity to run and cool it. This means customers can use the new processor to either increase their performance by 100 percent or cut their power consumption virtually in half. Read More
IBM and Sanyo Demonstrate Fuel Cell Prototype for ThinkPad Notebooks with 8 hour refill time
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April 29, 2005 IBM and SANYO Electric have demonstrated a prototype micro direct methanol fuel cell system for IBM ThinkPad notebooks. Leveraging SANYO's latest advancements in fuel cells that increase the longevity of notebook batteries, IBM and SANYO jointly developed a basic design of a fuel cell power source. Based on the design, the companies developed a prototype fuel cell system that could supply up to 8 hours of power per cartridge on current and future ThinkPad models. The SANYO system does not require altering the standard ThinkPad notebook design. Read More
