AI: IBM BlueGene/L top supercomputer, was: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Life in Biosphere 1

[Mike Lorrey]

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2005/06/1368_teraflops_.html

"136.8 teraflops? You da man, dawg.
No surprise, this: IBM and its Blue Gene supercomputer again claimed
the top spot in the Top500 supercomputer rankings. Built by IBM for
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Blue Gene/L recently recorded a
peak processing speed of 136.8 trillion calculations per second - or
teraflops - in testing. A jaw-dropping metric, even more so because
Blue Gene/L isn't even a complete system yet. It's currently fitted
with 62,000 microprocessors. IBM plans to double that number by
summer's end, giving the machine a peak performance expected to be in
excess of 360 teraflops. And then? Well, why not throw a few more
thousand on top of those? Said Dave Turek, a vice president of IBM's
deep computing division: "It's like constructing something out of Lego
building blocks.You can keep adding on to it." "

What is interesting is that the end size of BGL is to be 131,000 or so
processors. The current gigaflops per processor is ~2.1 at 62,000
processors. When they are done, the gigaflops per processor will be
2.75. Is this from using ever faster processors as it progresses, or
are they getting more work out of each processor the bigger the neural net?

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
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