NASA boosts supercomputer speed

By Margaret Kane
Posted on ZDNet News: Jun 18, 2002 2:15:00 PM

NASA has upgraded its SGI Origin supercomputer. The supercomputer has 1,024 processors, which are being bumped up to faster MIPS R14000A microprocessors running at 600MHz, SGI said Tuesday.

NASA is using the computer to study aeronautics, earth sciences and life sciences. The upgrade boosts the system from 819.2 gigaflops--that is, 819.2 billion calculations per second--to 1228.8 gigaflops of theoretical peak speed, said John Ziebarth, chief of the advanced supercomputing division at NASA Ames Research Center. --Margaret Kane, Special to ZDNet News