The upgrade to the Cray XT Jaguar supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) makes it the world’s fastest system available to open, unclassified research, officials said Monday.
The Jaguar, housed at the Oak Ridge National Leadership Computing Facility, is capable of reaching a peak 1.64 “petaflops” (one thousand trillion mathematical calculations per second).
Sen. Lamar Alexander said, “This new upgrade in supercomputing at Oak Ridge is just one of the many fascinating developments that is helping keep our state on the forefront of scientific research. It will preserve our brainpower advantage – especially along the Oak Ridge Corridor – so that we can create good jobs here instead of seeing them move overseas.”
Sen. Bob Corker said, “America's economic future depends upon our ability to remain competitive in the areas of science, engineering and mathematics. Today's announcement from the Department of Energy further solidifies Oak Ridge National Lab as a global leader in supercomputing and advanced scientific research. Upgrades to Jaguar and the planned development of a new supercomputer, Kraken, will produce lasting benefits for our state's economy and for American industry and innovation. It's exciting to think that solutions to some of the world’s most pressing and complex problems could be discovered right here in Tennessee.”
Rep. Zach Wamp said, “Our nation’s top scientists will now be able to accomplish in hours the same world class research that previously took months to finish. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has once again proven it can consistently complete major projects on time, on budget and exceed its original performance goals. The science accomplished in Oak Ridge will ultimately produce more and better American jobs, advanced consumer products and will dramatically increase our country’s scientific leadership around the world.”
Among the most powerful open scientific computing systems in the world, Jaguar is already in high demand by scientists wishing to take advantage of the machine’s blistering speed, it was stated.
Officials said, "The Jaguar petaflops system is unique in the balance it represents among speed, power, and other elements essential to scientific discovery. Jaguar will enable companies to reduce development costs and shorten the time required to market new technologies. It is the result of a partnership among DOE, ORNL and Cray, Inc. that has pushed computing capability at a rapid pace."
Additional information on the Leadership Computing Facility is available at: http://www.nccs.gov/