IBM has introduced its next generation supercomputing project, Blue Gene/Q, the supercomputer which will provide an ultra-scale technical computing platform to solve the most challenging problems that engineers and scientists are facing.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL ) deploys Blue Gene/Q to develop a system, named as "Sequoia", which is expected to achieve 20 petaflops at peak performance and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) will also implement Blue Gene/Q to develop a system, named as "Mira", which is expected to achieve 10 petaflops.
Blue Gene/Q is designed with a small footprint and low power requirements, operates at a faster magnitude by deploying 16 multi-processing core technology and a scalable peak performance up to 100 petaflops.
To simplify tracing errors and tuning performance Blue Gene/Q provides low latency, high performance runs which are based on an open source and standards-based operating environment.
The supercomputer includes a new IBM PowerPC A2 processing architecture in which each processor includes 16 compute cores plus a core allocated to operating system administrative functions and a redundant spare core.
Blue Gene/Q includes a hardware-based transactional memory that helps programmers avoid the potentially complex integration of locks and helps eliminate bottlenecks caused by deadlocking.
IBM VP of technical computing Brian Connors said completing computationally intensive projects for a wide variety of scientific applications that were previously unsolvable is not just possible – it is now probable.
"IBM’s historic role in developing the supercomputers that provide the power behind critical applications across every industry has uniquely positioned us to provide reliable supercomputing at the highest level," Connors said.
