IBM debuts supercomputer
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July 24, 2000: 11:20 a.m. ET
'World's fastest' supercomputer targeted at commercial Web firms
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - IBM has unveiled a commercial version of what it said is the fastest supercomputer in the world Monday, aimed at speeding applications used by e-commerce companies.
The RS/6000 SP supercomputer employs the same technology as IBM's ASCI white system, which is used by the U.S. Department of Energy to simulate nuclear testing. ASCI White contains more than 8,100 microprocessors and is capable of processing 12.3 trillion calculations per second -- thirty thousand times faster than an average personal computer.
Tapping into the business applications market, IBM's RS/6000 SP targets both start-up dot.coms and large corporate data centers to handle tasks such as Web serving, business intelligence and database workloads.
IBM said over 70 percent of all its supercomputers sold are used in commercial application processing, including complex tasks such as oceanographic modeling and ship design.
Last year, IBM introduced the RS/6000 S80, which it said was the fastest UNIX server ever. At the time, IBM said the RS/6000 S80, which carried a $290,000 price tag, could handle 66 percent more Web operations per second than the competing 900 N-Class server from Hewlett-Packard.
In Friday trading, IBM (IBM: Research, Estimates) closed down 2-1/2, or 2 percent, at 114-3/4.
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IBM
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