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By Sally Watson, 30 June 2000 00:20

NEWS IBM has smashed its own supercomputing target with ASCI White, a machine capable of 12.3 trillion calculations per second. The machine, built to order for the US Department of Energy (DoE), covers the area of two basketball courts and will be used to develop 3D models for use in simulations to maintain the reliability of the country's nuclear weapons stockpile as it grows older. ASCI White marks a significant stage in the joint project between IBM and the DoE which began in 1996. The machine is an extension of IBM's RS/6000 SP range. ASCI White is powered by more than 8,100 microprocessors and contains more than 6 trillion bytes of memory, and 160 trillion bytes of disk storage capacity. Specialist hardware for the supercomputer took two and a half years to develop. According to Dave Turek, VP of web server and deep computing division at IBM, the initial contract called for processing speeds of around ten teraflops per second, but a number of innovations in the development process increased performance by 23 per cent. It is the first time a computer has broken the ten teraflop barrier. Under the agreement with the DoE, IBM will continue development until it creates a machine capable of 100 teraflops per second. "We've looked at our plans and we know we can deliver by 2004," said Turek. Phil Dawson, senior analyst at the Meta Group, said IBM's R&D project is ambitious. "Current R&D cycles in industries such as nuclear testing have to stride across many product lines," he said. "In order to perform the calculations nuclear industry needs, IBM has created a product which features multiple devices. "The project may have some broader commercial impact but the technology will be deployed to smaller devices in the future," Dawson added. IBM hopes to have a small version of ASCI White available commercially later this year.