Microsoft scrapes into top 500 supercomputer list, but IBM rules supreme

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 19 June 2008 05:49

Opinion and Analysis

IBM has obliterated the competition in the supercomputing stakes with the top 10 of the top 500 supercomputers in the world, but Microsoft has surprisingly scraped in at number 23 with its Windows HPC Server system. While Microsoft is an unlucky 13 numbers away from the top 10, does the wow start now?

Microsoft can’t claim any particular ‘wow’ with its results until it can wrest a top 10 position, let alone the No.1 position away from IBM, but 23 isn’t too bad when we’re talking about a list of 500.

But the real news isn’t about Microsoft, it’s about IBM’s stunning top 10 wipeout of the competition, starting with IBM’s super speedy RoadRunner and its PETAflop of performance and power at the top of the tree, and four of its venerable Blue Gene systems also making the top 10 list.

Other supercomputer heavyweights Sun, Cray, SGI (twice) and Hewlett-Packard have also figured on the leader board, as expected.

But it’s not just the USA that is home to the world’s five fastest computers – Germany, Indian and France can also claim the kudos of a top 10 placing.

Sadly for us Aussies, we’re completely absent from the Top 500 list, although we could well be in the running for a 2009 placing.

Why? Because next year, the University of Melbourne plans to "develop the most powerful supercomputer and leading computational biology facility dedicated to life sciences research in the world."

The university's vice-chancellor, Professor Glyn Davis, said "The far reaching vision and scale of this initiative will combine Victoria’s already globally competitive biomedical research capability with computational infrastructure specially designed for the life sciences, equal to the best in the world."

But what was that about Windows HPC Server, and all that ‘wow’?

Please read on to page 2.