German research center Forschungszentrum Juelich has selected IBM to develop Europe’s first Petaflop supercomputer in partnership with Juelich-based Gauss Centre for Supercomputing.
IBM will install the Blue Gene/P System in the first half of this year. The system will include nearly 295,000 IBM Power processors and 144 terabytes of memory, adding to Forschungszentrum Juelich’s existing supercomputing capability that includes an additional six petabytes of hard disk drive space. The system features network latency of 160 nanoseconds and 5.1GB bandwidth.
Thomas Lippert, lead scientist at Juelich supercomputing center, said: With speeds over a Petaflop, this new Juelich-based supercomputer offers the processing ability of more than 200,000 laptop computers. In addition to raw power, this new system will be among the most energy-efficient in the world.
Martin Jetter, general manager at IBM Germany, said: Forschungszentrum Juelich and IBM complement each other ideally with a focus in developing compact systems with industry leading performance and energy efficiency. This new Petaflop Blue Gene system will ensure that Germany remains relevant for leading research and engineering.
Earlier this month the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and IBM signed an agreement to build a 20 petaflop supercomputer for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
