Installation of what will be the world’s largest unclassified supercomputer has begun at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Thomas Zacharia, ORNL’s associate laboratory director for Computing and Computational Sciences, said the Cray XT3 supercomputer will be able to perform 100 trillion calculations per second in different science disciplines by 2006.
“When it is fully operational, it will allow us to do great science in nanoscience, biotechnology, fusion, climate, and a number of areas where science is going to be done uniquely because of computers like this,” Zacharia said.
Zacharia said test calculations on the Cray XT3 will be conducted quickly.
“We expect this machine to be up and running in the next two weeks,” Zacharia said. “It will be in a check-out mode to make sure the systems are running.”
Zacharia added plans are for the supercomputer to be available to users by Oct. 1.
ORNL’s supercomputing program is funded by DOE’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy.
