National Center for Computational Sciences

The retooled Jaguar supercomputer blew away the competition on the latest list of the 500 fastest computers in the world, clocking an incredible 1.759 petaflops — 1,759 trillion calculations per second.

The machine, housed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, added two more cores with the aid of almost $20 million in stimulus spending. With the new processors, the Cray XT5 plowed past the Top500 competition. It’s more than 69 percent faster than the previous record holder, Los Alamos National Laboratory’s IBM Roadrunner, and is more than twice as powerful as the third-fastest computer on the list.

But it’s not just how many calculations the machine performs that’s noteworthy. The new supercomputer also marks a turning point in the placement for funding of America’s computing resources.

Jaguar’s spot atop the list marks the first time a civilian Department of Energy computer has been the most powerful in the world. Instead of modeling nuclear explosions, which is Roadrunner’s primary job, Jaguar carries out scientific research on the globe’s climate and other computational-intensive problems.

“Supercomputer modeling and simulation is changing the face of science and sharpening America’s competitive edge,” said Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “Oak Ridge and other DOE national laboratories are helping address major energy and climate challenges and lead America toward a clean energy future.”

The Department of Energy has long been a chimera of different research components. The DOE was created out of the Energy Research and Development Agency in the late 1970s, which was itself formed largely out of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1974. The AEC managed the national laboratory system that developed during the Manhattan Project and was responsible for both civilian and military nuclear research.

Continue reading at Wired.com.