Technology Update: Supercomputer smashes world speed record

18:16 18 April 02 NewScientist.com news service

A Japanese supercomputer has recorded the fastest "floating point" calculation speed of any computer on the planet. The feat is reported in the latest edition of the Linpack report, a ranking of supercomputer performance. The Earth Simulator at the Marine Science and Technology Center in Kanagawa, notched up 35.61 teraflops - that is over 35 trillion "floating point" calculations per second. The speed is five times faster than that recorded by the previous record holder, IBM's ASCI White at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. This computer achieved a benchmark of 7.23 teraflops.