WASHINGTON (Kyodo) The U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday it has chosen IBM Corp. to build what it hopes will be world's fastest supercomputer. The computer will employ technology from the Japanese consumer electronics industry and be used to develop nuclear weapons.
The supercomputer, which has been dubbed the "Roadrunner," is designed to perform 1 quadrillion calculations per second, or 1 petaflop. It will be installed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where it will be used to ensure the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile through subcritical nuclear tests and others, the department said. In a subcritical test, no nuclear explosion takes place. The most recent subcritical test in the United States was conducted last month.
The supercomputer will incorporate a microprocessor jointly developed with Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp.