IBM Posts Top Growth on Supercomputer List

Leads Major Vendors with 83 Percent Growth Among Top 100 Sites

SC '98, Orl & o, Fla (November 10, 1998) – IBM announced today that it has increased its share of systems on the TOP500 list of the largest supercomputers by more than 40 percent in just the past six months. IBM systems now account for 105 of the world’s fastest computers, an increase of 30 installations since May.
IBM’s dramatic growth ranks first among major vendors on the November 1998 list of the 500 most powerful supercomputer sites. The company’s increases were even more substantial at the highest end of computing, with 22 RS/6000 SP systems now among the world’s 100 most powerful systems, an 83 percent increase.
“Customers are turning to IBM’s RS/6000 SP to meet their most demanding computing needs and to tackle increasingly complex problems that only the world’s most advanced computers can solve,” said Nicholas Donofrio, IBM senior vice president for Technology and Manufacturing. “IBM’s leadership in deep computing — helping companies and organizations extract valuable information and relationships from unprecedented volumes of data — is fueling demand for these high-performance systems.”
Donofrio said that IBM is developing an aggressive road map to extend the capabilities of the world’s most advanced computers.
“We are already building a 10 teraflops system for delivery to the Department of Energy in 2000 and, even more remarkable, we’re on track to demonstrate a 1000 teraflop system before the end of the next decade.”
The TOP500 Supercomputer list ( http://www.top500.org/), published Nov. 5, has been issued every six months since 1993 by Hans Meuer and Erich Strohmaier of the University of Mannheim, Germany and Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee.
IBM Moves to Extend Supercomputer Leadership
IBM today also announced several steps designed to further extend its leadership in scientific, technical and engineering (STE) computing.
First, the company is opening an Advanced Computer Technology Center that provides customers with solutions for porting and optimizing applications to IBM’s RS/6000 SP. To facilitate this, the center will help independent software vendors develop programming tools and will coordinate the development of optimized software libraries.
Second, industry-specific Competency Centers are being established that will provide expertise and resources to a range of customers in manufacturing, research, and petroleum.
“As we approach the fifth anniversary of the RS/6000 SP, we have installed 5,000 systems around the world,” said Mike Henesey, IBM program director of Scientific and Technical Computing. “The SP has proven itself for the most demanding scientific and technical computing tasks. Our customers are asking for help in creating new SP applications, optimizing those they are using now, and porting applications from other providers’ hardware.”
Henesey added, “The combined resources of new centers will be unmatched in the industry in terms of providing a full range of high-performance solutions for our customers.” Customers can receive more information on both centers by writing to ACTC@us.ibm.com.
In recent weeks IBM has announced a string of prestigious supercomputing wins including the most powerful supercomputer in the world at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced by Vice President Al Gore on Oct. 28, a contract to build the world’s largest academic supercomputer at San Diego Supercomputer Center, and the sale of a large RS/6000 SP system to the National Weather Service.

Source: IBM

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