IBM’s Sequoia declared the Fastest Computer in the World

Sequoia, the US super computer, was crowned the fastest computer in the world on 17 June 2012. Situated at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, Sequoia is able to make 16.32 quadrillion calculations per second (16.32 petaflops/s). Developed by IBM, the supercomputer belongs from IBM’s BlueGene family, which runs on Power processors, chips that are made at IBM’s plant in East Fishkill.

The powerful Supercomputing System Sequoia help the United States keep its nuclear stockpile safe, secure and effective without the need for underground testing. The U.S. is the top consumer of high-performance systems. With 253 of 500 systems US holds the highest share of world’s fastest computers. Asia holds 121 systems, with China (68 systems) and Japan (34 systems) leading in that region. Europe has 107 systems with the U.K. (25), France (22) and Germany (20) in a tight race. Top 500 systems also appear in scattered countries such as Israel, Canada, United Arab Emirates and Australia.

The top 10 Powerful Supercomputers of the world:

1.    Sequoia at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California - US
2.    K Computer at RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science campus in Kobe - Japan
3.    Mira at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois - US
4.    SuperMUC at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Garching - Germany
5.    Tianhe-1A at National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin - China
6.    Jaguar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee - US
7.    Fermi at CINECA in Bologna - Italy
8.    JuQueen at Forschungszentrum Juelich in Julich - Germany
9.    Curie thin nodes at CEA/TGCC-GENCI in Bruyeres-le-Chatel - France
10.  Nebulae at National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen - China

Where does India stand in the list of top 500 computers?

As per the June 2012 Top 500 Supercomputers list (it is published twice in a year) two supercomputers from India figured in the top 100. The CSIR Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation (C-MMACS), ranked 58, while SAGA-220, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and the IISc, ranked 86.

Earlier in November 2007, India had got nine supercomputers in the Top 500 list. Eka’s, developed by the Computational Research Laboratories Ltd (CRL), a unit of Tata Sons, the Hewlett-Packard (HP) system was ranked the world’s fourth-largest supercomputer. The system cost around 30 million dollar(around 165 crore rupees ) and was built in just six weeks. It was the first time that an Indian supercomputer figured among the world’s top 10. Though the system now ranks 129 in the top 500 list.

PARAM 8000 is broadly considered as India’s first supercomputer. It was built by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) with Russian collaboration.

The University of Mannheim, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville every year prepares the list of TOP 500 supercomputers in the world.