The Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), both of which are under the umbrella of the Energy Department, will share the cost with IBM for the five-year, $58 million research and development effort, according to IBM. The project will build on the capabilities of the IBM BlueGene/L system, the most powerful supercomputer in the world today. Installed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., BlueGene has a Linpack performance of 280.6 teraflops.

A second BlueGene system, the eServer BlueGene Solution system, installed at IBM's Thomas Watson Research Center and running 91.20 teraflops, is the third most powerful supercomputer in the world.

Researchers hope to use the new supercomputer to monitor the aging process of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, speed genome sequencing, and model climate changes, according to IBM. The company will work on the development with scientists from Argonne National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore.

The NNSA and the Office of Science will each contribute $17.5 million, and IBM will contribute $23 million.

By: DocMemory
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