Oak Ridge supercomputer is the world's fastest f...( OAK RIDGE Tenn. Nov. 17 2008 -- A Cr...)

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 17, 2008 -- A Cray XT high-performance computing system at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the world's fastest supercomputer for science. The annual ranking of the world's top 500 computers (www.top500.org) will be released Tuesday in Austin at an annual international supercomputing conference.

The Cray XT, called Jaguar, has a peak performance of 1.64 petaflops, (quadrillion floating point operations, or calculations) per second, incorporating a 1.382 petaflops XT5 and 266 teraflops XT4 systems. Each component of the Jaguar system is separately ranked second and eighth on the current list of Top500 supercomputers in the world.

"This accomplishment is the culmination of our vision to regain leadership in high performance computing and harness its potential for scientific investigation," said Undersecretary for Science Raymond L. Orbach. "I am especially gratified because we make this machine available to the entire scientific community through an open and transparent process that has resulted in spectacular scientific results ranging from the human brain to the global climate to the origins of the Universe."

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason said the real value of the new machine will be measured by the scientific breakthroughs that will now be possible.

"We are proud to be home to the world's most powerful computer dedicated to open science, but we are more excited about the ability of Oak Ridge and the Department of Energy to take a leading role in finding solutions to scientific challenges such as new energy sources and climate change," Mason said.

In June, a DOE supercomputer named Roadrunner at Los Alamos National Laboratory was the first to break the petascale barrier. Built with advanced IBM Cell processors, Roadrunner helps ensure the reliability of America's nuclear weapons stockpile.

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