“A team of computer scientists at IBM and the University of
California/Lawrence Livermore Labs have used Linux and embedded
System on Chip (SoC) technology to achieve a breakthrough in
supercomputer technology expected to radically reduce the size and
cost of highly scalable systems, while dramatically increasing
performance. A prototype the size of a 30-inch television has
already weighed in at number 73 on the Top500 Supercomputer project
list, producing two teraFLOPS (trillions of floating point
operations per second).“The BlueGene/L ‘Livermore’ system, when completed in late 2004,
is expected to scale to 128,000 processors and deliver a
theoretical 360 teraFLOPS (trillion floating-point operations per
second), all while drawing just 1 MegaWatt of power and taking up a
mere half-tennis-court worth of floor space. Cooling demands will
also be low, by supercomputing standards…”