IBM (NYSE: IBM) and GENCI said they have announced a collaboration aimed at speeding up the path to exascale computing — the ability of a computing system to perform at least one exaflop, or a billion billion calculations, in one second.
Currently the fastest systems in the world perform between ten and 33 petaflops, or ten to 33 million billion calculations per second — roughly one to three percent the speed of exascale. Put into context, if exascale computing is the equivalent of an automobile reaching 1000 miles per hour, today´s fastest systems are running within a range between ten and 33 miles per hour.
The collaboration, planned to run for at least 18 months, focuses on readying complex scientific applications for systems under development expected to achieve more than 100 petaflops, a solid step forward on the path to exascale. Working closely with supercomputing experts from IBM, GENCI will have access to some of the most advanced high performance computing technologies stemming from the rapidly expanding OpenPOWER ecosystem. Supported by more than 140 OpenPOWER Foundation members and thousands of developers worldwide, the OpenPOWER ecosystem includes a wide variety of computing solutions that use IBM´s licensable and open POWER processor technology.
