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NASA's Columbia Supercomputer Seizes Second Position in Top 500 Supercomputers, Outshining Earth Simulator with 51.87 Teraflops Performance

Strategic Insights

— 1 min read

At the Supercomputing Conference 2004, the 24th Top 500 list confirmed that NASA's Columbia supercomputer has added another performance milestone for the acclaimed SGI Altix platform. With a sustained performance of 51.87 trillion calculations per second (teraflops) and peak performance of 60.96 teraflops across 10,240 processors, Columbia has surpassed Japan's Earth Simulator, which has been rated as the world's top supercomputer for over two years. The Columbia supercomputer, built from 20 SGI Altix systems, has been in full production use at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, since October 12.

Key Takeaways:

  • The Columbia supercomputer, with 51.87 teraflops performance, has taken the second position in the Top 500 supercomputers, outshining Japan's Earth Simulator.
  • The system is based on 20 SGI Altix systems with 10,240 Intel Itanium 2 processors and the Linux operating system.
  • Columbia has earned its spot in the list of the world's top 500 most powerful systems, leaving behind systems such as IBM's Blue Gene/L.
  • Ghassem Asrar, Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, states that the Columbia system will enable scientists to simulate the evolution of the Earth and planetary ecosystems with high fidelity.
  • SGI Altix systems have been adopted by leading automakers, consumer product manufacturers, energy companies, pharmaceutical companies, national laboratories, government agencies, and research institutions worldwide.
  • The Top 500 list was announced today at the Supercomputing Conference 2004, with NASA's Columbia supercomputer standing out as one of its top performers.
  • Bob Bishop, Chairman and CEO of SGI, expresses pride in the exceptional performance of Columbia and the ability to deliver real results in less than 120 days.
  • The SGI Altix system's global shared-memory architecture provides a high level of productivity and ease of use for the world's most demanding users.

Statistics:

  • Sustained performance of 51.87 trillion calculations per second (teraflops)
  • Peak performance of 60.96 teraflops across 10,240 processors
  • Over 800 SGI Altix systems delivered and in production worldwide
  • The Columbia supercomputer has been in full production use at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility since October 12

Sources:

  • "Fully Operational 10,240-Processor Columbia System Rated at 51.87 Teraflops, Returning World-Class Supercomputing to U.S. Scientists"
  • Supercomputing Conference 2004
  • SGI website: http://www.sgi.com/

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