IBM supercomputers are the most energy efficient supercomputers in the world, according to the latest Supercomputing Green500 List announced by Green500.org. A prototype of IBM's next generation Blue Gene supercomputer is number-one on the list.
In addition, the list, which includes supercomputers from around the world that are being used for a variety of applications such as astronomy, climate prediction and pharmaceutical research, shows that 15 of the top 25 most energy efficient supercomputers in the world are built on IBM high-performance computing technology. IBM also holds over half of the top 100 positions on this list.
Energy efficiency, including performance per watt for the most computationally demanding workloads, has long been a core design principle in developing IBM systems. Energy efficient supercomputers can allow IBM clients to realize critical cost savings by lowering power consumption and reducing expenses associated with cooling. For example, for every $1 spent on electricity with the number-two system on the Green500 list, clients would spend $0.56 cents on a petascale system based on IBM's next generation Blue Gene, which is 77% more energy efficient than the next system on the Green500 list.
IBM's next generation Blue Gene is scheduled to be deployed in 2012 by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), both of which collaborated closely with IBM on the design of Blue Gene, influencing many aspects of the system's software and hardware. Columbia University and the University of Edinburgh contributed to the next generation Blue Gene's processor chip design, and both institutions plan to use the system to advance quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which is a part of the study of particle physics.
More information about the Green500 List is available here.
More information about IBM and HPC Solutions can be found here.