NNSA's
Sequoia supercomputer ranked as world's fastest
Supercomputer
at Lawrence Livermore National Lab passes 16 petaflops
WASHINGTON,
D.C. - The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) today announced that
a supercomputer called Sequoia at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
was ranked the world's most powerful computing system. Clocking in at 16.32
sustained petaflops (quadrillion floating point operations per second), Sequoia
earned the No. 1 ranking on the industry standard Top500 list of the world's
fastest supercomputers released Monday, June 18, at the International
Supercomputing Conference (ISC12) in Hamburg, Germany. Sequoia was built for
NNSA by IBM.
A 96-rack IBM
Blue Gene/Q system, Sequoia will enable simulations that explore phenomena at a
level of detail never before possible. Sequoia is dedicated to NNSA's Advanced
Simulation and Computing (ASC) program for stewardship of the nation's nuclear
weapons stockpile, a joint effort from LLNL, Los Alamos National Laboratory and
Sandia National Laboratories.
"Computing
platforms like Sequoia help the United States keep its nuclear stockpile safe,
secure and effective without the need for underground testing," NNSA
Administrator Thomas D'Agostino said. "While Sequoia may be the fastest,
the underlying computing capabilities it provides give us increased confidence
in the nation's nuclear deterrent as the weapons stockpile changes under treaty
agreements, a critical part of President Obama's nuclear security agenda.
Sequoia also represents continued American leadership in high performance computing,
key to the technology innovation that drives high-quality jobs and economic
prosperity."
read more:
watch the
videos: