New supercomputer: MDGrape-3 kicks some IBM ass

1 PetaFlop specially designed for Protein-Folding. Let us hijack it for Numbercrunching.

http://www.bloglines.com/blog/ITnomad?id=126

Chris

---

The special-purpose CPUs are designed by Riken and they seem to be commercially available... could anyone who speaks Japanese have a look?

http://mdgrape.gsc.riken.jp/index.php

Cheers, Alex.

---

"I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here... We have spent
millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it
should be stopped."
-- Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institute, 1901.

I know that LANL is building its own petascale supercomputer in the coming years for (IIRC) about 20 million USD (to run nuclear codes I think). That one won't be available on the public market. :P

---

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/02/24/supercomputer-named-watson-could-revolutionize-health-care/

COOL!! I'll bet it is used to review records first though just to ensure each patient is getting the best care and to kind of peer review the Doctors. It did have a couple of glitches on the show, I wouldn't want to be the patient when it had one of those.