“The U.S. Department of Energy today said its Sandia National
Laboratories are teaming up with Compaq Computer Corp. and a
biotechnology company to develop a $150 million Linux-based
supercomputer that’s supposed to be capable of processing at least
100 trillion operations per second.”
“The Sandia labs and Celera Genomics Group in Rockville, Md.,
plan to work together on the project under a joint research and
development agreement, with Houston-based Compaq as their
technology provider. The planned system will be built around future
versions of Compaq’s AlphaServer SC supercomputer line and is being
designed for use in complex applications in the fields of
computational biology and life sciences….”
“The prototype supercomputer will likely use 10,000 to 20,000 of
Compaq’s Alpha processors and is being budgeted at $150 million in
current costs, according to Blake. He added that the first system
could eventually lead to the development of a so-called
“petacruncher” — a machine capable of 1,000 teraflops — by the
end of the decade.”