IBM Sequoia: How Much Faster Can it Get!
Posted on April 6, 2009 by admin Under Computers · Leave a Comment
With a speed rating of 20 petaflops, the IBM Sequoia claims to be faster than the combined speed of the fastest five hundred super computers.
So what is the actual hype about all of this? IBM gave us some very meaningful ways by which we could actually get a hang of the 20 quadrillion mathematical processes within just one second
- What the Sequoia would be capable of doing one hour is exactly the same as what could be done by 6.7 billion people with a hand calculator working together on a calculation for 24 hours every day, for 365 days for 320 years!
- 20 petaflops can actually provide an improvement as much as “fifty times” of our current capability to give out predictions about earthquakes. This will give scientists the capacity to predict the effects of an earthquake on a building-by-building basis over an area which was possibly as big as the Los Angeles County.
- 20 petaflops could also throw out an improvement of “forty times” in the capability to forecast and monitor the weather. This will enable forecasters to give predictions about local weather happenings which will affect areas ranging from hundred meters to even sizes of one kilometer. This is a huge jump from the current range of ten-kilometers.
The power for the Sequoia will come in from 1.6 million cores (being developed 45-nanometer chips) and of course a memory of 1.6 petabytes. The housing will comprise of 96 refrigerators which will take up about 3,000 square feet of area.
The Sequoia is mainly expected to be used by the U.S. Government who will seek its assistance for studies related to “Uncertainty Quantification” and also calculations related to weapon science.
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