Computerworld: Bell, Torvalds Usher in Next Wave of Supercomputing

“Some of the IT world’s top luminaries gathered at Los Alamos
National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., Friday to witness the
unveiling of a compact supercomputer that proponents say could
provide the model for high-performance computing systems in the
years ahead.

“Gordon Bell, one of the original brains behind the
minicomputer, and Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating
system, joined a collection of scientists for the unveiling of the
supercomputer, a Beowolf cluster called Green Destiny that was
built from hundreds of so-called blade servers — compact servers
stripped down to their most basic components…

“Unlike many supercomputers that use specialized components and
can fill entire buildings, the Green Destiny fits 240 server blades
from RLX Technologies Inc. into a server rack that would fit inside
most closets. The blades use low-powered processors from Transmeta
Corp. and a version of the Linux operating system…”

Complete Story