Intel breaks teraflop speed barrier

17 Jun 2002

Intel Corp. computer engineers demonstrated the one-teraflops breakthrough, considered to be the Holy Grail of high-performance computing, to officials from the Department of Energy and Sandia National Laboratories on Dec. 11 in Beaverton, Ore. Achievement of the one-trillion math-operations per second computing milestone ushers in a new era in which high-fidelity 3-D simulation will enable scientists to reach the eventual goal of preserving a safe, secure and reliable nuclear deterrent without underground testing.

The Intel massively parallel computer was developed under direction of the Department of Energy for the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI). The Tflops, now the fastest supercomputer in the world, and which DOE, Sandia and Intel are touting as the world's first "UltraComputer," is being moved in sections from Oregon to Sandia over the next few months.The full system will consist of 76 large computer cabinets, with 9,072 Pentium Pro processors and nearly six billion byes of memory. It will cover about 1,600 square feet.