Moscow State University Math Department Now Owns One of World's Most Powerful Supercomputers

February 11, 2008

The Department of Computational Mathematics at Moscow State University has paid $5 million for two racks of one of the world's most powerful supercomputers. 

The Russian math department purchased a Blue Gene device, which can do 28 trillion operations per second, for research on nanotechnology and scientific applications such as modeling the heart, according to IBM. The machine runs 2,600 times faster than the fastest personal computer, and should be operational by April. Each rack is about the size of a refrigerator. Racks can be added as requirements grow.

IBM said the supercomputer, which ranks among the world's 50 most powerful supercomputers, had received an export license because it would be used solely for scientific research. "This agreement with IBM heralds a new era of supercomputing in Russia," said Viktor Sadovnichiy, the university's rector.

The world's most powerful supercomputer is a Blue Gene device owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. Twenty times more powerful than the one bought by Moscow State University, it is used at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to model the ageing of U.S. nuclear weapons in order to foretell potential dangers.

Source:  Television New Zealand