Max Wanadoo
max.wanadoo at gmail.com
Mon Apr 26 22:56:21 CDT 2010
...and thinking about the basics...how thick would the power cable have to be? Don't think it would plug into my wall socket somehow. Max -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 2:42 AM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: [AccessD] And why not? The move to exaflop supercomputers Today, the world's fastest supercomputers are topping out at about 1 petaflop--or 1,000 trillion floating point operations per second. Biswas said there are about five such computers on Earth today, two at the LINK Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee, one in China, and one in Germany. And Pleiades is just behind that. But already, he said, the next-generation thinking in the industry is envisioning machines capable of exaflop computing, which is the equivalent of 1,000 petaflops. Of course, as with any new supercomputing threshold, the question isn't necessarily whether it's possible to build the hardware, but whether it's also possible to optimize applications for such a powerful system. And not only that, Biswas said, but there's also a crucial question of whether it's possible to build machines that powerful and yet have them be energy efficient. A petaflop supercomputer draws about 7 megawatts of power, he explained. That would mean that without increased efficiencies, an exaflop machine would draw 7 gigawatts. And that's simply out of the question. "You can't expect to have a nuclear reactor sitting next to a supercomputer," he said. ;) -- John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com