Blue Gene/L, IBM’s newest supercomputer based off the original Blue Gene project, took the title of world’s fastest supercomputer from the Earth Simulator System in Nov of 2004. With a sustained performance of 70.72 teraflops it will be used for numerous applications and high performance computing. It has also spawned a commercial version capable of 5.72 teraflops, the eServer Blue Gene Solution. Currently IBM is building a full Blue Gene/L system for the Department of Energy’s NNSA/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Blue Gene/L’s most remarkable feature is it’s size. The completed system will take up space equivalent to half a tennis court, much smaller than most. It will also consume significantly less power, at 1.6 megawatts. The prototype of 32,000 processors knocked the ESS off the list, but when delivered to Lawrence Livermore it will be twice that. It is valued at about $100 million.