Blue Gene

Supercomputer breaks speed record

By Jo Twist
BBC News technology and science reporter

The US is poised to push Japan off the top of the supercomputing chart with IBM's prototype Blue Gene/L machine.

It is being assembled for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, a US Department of Energy lab (DOE).

DOE test results show that Blue Gene/L has managed speeds of 70.72 teraflops. The current top machine, Japan's NEC Earth Simulator, clocks up 35.86.

Damn! I wonder how fast it will get through Seti workunits...