It’s not news that Linux powers most of the world’s fastest supercomputers, but have you ever actually seen the list? I was not aware that there was an organization set up to track all those supercomputers and publish the details, but today I found Top500 Supercomputer sites and its latest Top500 list for June 2010. BBC News has a very cool graphical representation of the list.

According to its Objectives page:

Our list has been compiled twice a year since June 1993 with the help of high-performance computer experts, computational scientists, manufacturers, and the Internet community in general who responded to a questionnaire we sent out; we thank all the contributors for their cooperation. We have also used parts of statistical lists published by others for different purposes.

Top500 uses the Linpack Benchmark to rate the performance of the supercomputers, which you can find out more details about by following the link. So, what’s on top right now? The title belongs to the Jaguar - Cray XT5-HE Opteron Six Core 2.6 GHz at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the United States, with peak speeds around 2.33 petaflops — powered by Linux, of course.
 

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It’s not news that Linux powers most of the world’s fastest supercomputers, but have you ever actually seen the list? I was not aware that there was an organization set up to track all those supercomputers and publish the details, but today I found Top500 Supercomputer sites and its latest Top500 list for June 2010. BBC News has a very cool graphical representation of the list.

According to its Objectives page:

Our list has been compiled twice a year since June 1993 with the help of high-performance computer experts, computational scientists, manufacturers, and the Internet community in general who responded to a questionnaire we sent out; we thank all the contributors for their cooperation. We have also used parts of statistical lists published by others for different purposes.

Top500 uses the Linpack Benchmark to rate the performance of the supercomputers, which you can find out more details about by following the link. So, what’s on top right now? The title belongs to the Jaguar - Cray XT5-HE Opteron Six Core 2.6 GHz at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the United States, with peak speeds around 2.33 petaflops — powered by Linux, of course.
 

Read More
Article History