Amaizing World of Computer

Amaizing World of Computer

A £3.2m supercomputer, one of the most powerful in the UK, has been installed at the University of Southampton.

The Iridis4 has 12,200 processors, each of which can perform a trillion calculations per second - a measurement referred to as a "teraflop".

The IBM machine also has a million gigabytes of disk space and 50 terabytes of memory.

Home computers generally have between 500GB and 2TB of disc space and about 4GB to 6GB of memory.

There are 1,024 gigabytes in a terabyte.

The university said the new machine would allow academics to work on more projects at faster speeds.

Pro vice-chancellor Prof Philip Nelson said: "Staying ahead of the game in high performance computing [HPC] is vital to help the university stay competitive.

"Simulation and computation enabled by HPC are recognised globally as the third pillar of modern research and this investment will ensure we remain world leaders in this field."

Iridis4 will be used for a range of research, including engineering, archaeology and medicine, as well as computer science.

The world's most powerful computer is China's Tianhe-2, which can perform 33,860 trillion calculations per second.

The university said its new computer ranked among the top 10 in the UK.

The most powerful is at the Science and Technology Facilities Council in Warrington.

China's Tianhe-2

A China-based supercomputer has leapfrogged rivals to be named the world's most powerful system.

Tianhe-2, developed by the government-run National University of Defence Technology, topped  of the fastest 500 supercomputers, (international researchers).

They said the news was a "surprise" since the system had not been expected to be ready until 2015.

China last held the top rank between November 2010 and June 2011.

According to the list, the US has the world's second and third fastest supercomputers, Titan and Sequoia, while Japan's K computer drops to fourth spot.

Fastest supercomputers of world

1. Tianhe-2 (China)

2. Titan (US)

3. Sequoia (US)

4. K computer (Japan)

5. Mira (US)

6. Stampede (US)

7. Juqueen (Germany)

8. Vulcan (US)

9. SuperMuc (Germany)

10. Tianhe-1A (China)

The latest version of the twice-yearly list.

Unique features

According to the Linpack benchmark, Tianhe-2 - meaning Milky Way-2 - operates at 33.86 petaflop/sec, the equivalent of 33,860 trillion calculations per second.

The benchmark measures real-world performance - but in theory the machine can boost  to a "peak performance" of 54.9 petaflop/sec.

The project was sponsored by the Chinese government's 863 High Technology Programme - an effort to make the country's hi-tech industries more competitive and less dependent on overseas rivals.

It has said it intends to install the equipment at the National Supercomputer Centre in Guangzhou, based in the country's south-eastern Guandong province, where it will be offered as a "research and education" resource to southern China.

The machine uses a total of 3.12 million processor cores, using Intel's Ivy Bridge and Xeon Phi chips to carry out its calculations.

However, the University of Tennessee's Jack Dongarra - a member of the Top 500 list team who visited the project in May - noted that many of its features were developed in China and are unique.   (Source of blog:   BBC and other News and science papers)