[AccessD] And why not?

It becomes real obvious why Intel and AMD are focusing so much energy on making their CPUs more 
efficient.  There are lots of companies building their own data centers with near-super computer 
capacity.  Think Google, Bing and Yahoo for starters, Amazon and other cloud vendors etc.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com


Max Wanadoo wrote:
> ...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.
> 
> ;)
>