Top 10 Supercomputers in the World

Supercomputers are defined to be the fastest line of computers. Contrary to mainframes and microcomputers, supercomputers are dedicated to execute only a few programs simultaneously. This is to avoid compromising the speed needed for tasks requiring a lot of processing speed. Among the functions of supercomputers are weather forecasting, high-end graphic animations, dynamic calculations, nuclear power researches, and fuel exploration.

The speed of supercomputers is measured in FLOPS (Floating Point Operations Per Second). Before, supercomputers are stuck to what is called “Petaflop Barrier” or A thousand teraflops. However, in June 2008, the “Petaflop Barrier” has been shredded by IBM’s Roadrunner installed at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Today, there exists two supercomputers breaking the petaflop barrier.

Holding on to the No. 1 spot as the world fastest computer running in 1105.00 Teraflops is IBM’s Roadrunner found in Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA. Second place is the second teraflop barrier-breaker with a speed of 1059.00 Teraflops is Cray XT5 of Cray Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA. Third spot is running in 825.50 Teraflops called JUGENE of IBM located at Jülich Research Centre, Germany. Fourth place is Pleiades of SGI based in NASA/Ames Research Center, USA with a speed of 487.01 Teraflops. Fifth post is Blue Gene/L by IBM installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA running in 478.20 Teraflops. Sixth placer is called Kraken by Cray Research found in National Institute for Computational Sciences, USA with a speed of 463.30 Teraflops. Seventh place holder is IBM’s Intrepid running on 458.61 Teraflops at Argonne National Laboratory, USA. In eighth position is called Ranger by Sun Microsystems located in Texas Advanced Computing Center, USA with a speed of 433.20 Teraflops. IBM’s Dawn is in ninth place with its 415.70 Teraflops speed installed in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA. The top 10 supercomputer as of ISC09 conference on June 23, 2009 at Hamburg, Germany is called JUROPA by Groupe Bull located in Jülich Research Centre, Germany.