U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker and U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp said today that the Cray XT Jaguar supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) completed a rigorous acceptance test nine months ahead of schedule.
Officials said the acceptance test of the performance, functionality and stability of the machine demonstrated that it is ready to deliver the science results needed to address some of the nation’s most challenging problems, such as climate change and energy assurance.
The Jaguar, housed at the Oak Ridge National Leadership Computing Facility, is the world’s fastest system available to open, unclassified research and will enable more scientific results on an earlier schedule than originally planned.
Sen. 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. Corker said, “I’m proud that Oak Ridge’s supercomputer has – nine months ahead of schedule – completed testing and proven its ability to produce the science to help us tackle some of our planet’s most pressing and complex issues.”
Rep. Wamp said, “The level of science that this computer will deliver could have profound long-term benefits for American competitiveness. With the Jaguar upgrades, Tennessee is now the center for world computing.”
Officials said the Jaguar is among the most powerful open, scientific computing systems in the world. The Jaguar is already in high demand by scientists wishing to take advantage of the machine’s speed, as it is capable of reaching a peak 1.64 “petaflops” (one thousand trillion mathematical calculations per second).The Jaguar petaflops system is unique in the balance it represents among speed, power and other elements essential to scientific discovery.
They said 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.