supercomputers

Features

• Georgia Tech supercomputer powered by graphics processors

  Georgia Tech researchers building an experimental new supercomputer say graphics processors may help pave the way toward future exascale machines, which would be 1,000 times faster than today's most powerful supercomputers.

• Inside Tsubame - the Nvidia GPU supercomputer

  When you enter the computer room on the second floor of Tokyo Institute of Technology's computer building, you're not immediately struck by the size of Japan's second-fastest supercomputer. You can't see the Tsubame computer for the industrial air conditioning units that are standing in your way, but this in itself is telling. With more than 30,000 processing cores buzzing away, the machine consumes a megawatt of power and needs to be kept cool.

• Supercomputer race: Tricky to boost system speed

  Every June and November, with fanfare lacking only in actual drum rolls and trumpet blasts, a new list of the world's fastest supercomputers is revealed. Vendors brag, and the media reach for analogies such as "It would take a patient person with a handheld calculator x number of years (think millennia) to do what this hunk of hardware can spit out in one second."