Eyes-on the innards of Fujitsu's K supercomputer (updated)

-
Eyes-on the innards of Fujitsu's K supercomputerFujitsu's K supercomputer was on our radar before it was even completed, and naturally, we let you know when it smoked the competition and became the supercomputing speed king. So, when we had the opportunity to see a piece of K at Fujitsu's North America Technology Forum today, we couldn't pass it up. In case you forgot, K is a massive machine powered by 864 racks with 24 boards per rack housing SPARC64 CPUs. We got to see one of those boards, and Yuichiro Ajima -- who designed the inter-connection chips (ICC) on them -- was gracious enough to give us some more info on this most super of supercomputers.

As you can see in the gallery above, each board has extensive plumbing to keep the SPARC silicon running at a manageable 32 - 35 degrees Celsius (90 - 95 Fahrenheit) under load. Underneath that copper cooling system lies four processors interspersed between 32 memory modules (with 2GB per module) and four ICCs lined up next to the board's rack interconnect ports. Currently, the system takes 30 megawatts to do its thing, though Ajima informed us that K's theoretical max electricity consumption is about double that -- for perspective, that means K could consume the entire output of some solar power plants. When asked if there were plans to add more racks should Fujitsu's supercomputer lose its crown, Ajima-san said that while possible, there are no plans to do so -- we'll see if that changes should a worthy opponent present itself.

Update: Turns out the K's power consumption resides around 13 megawatts, with a max consumption of 16MW at its current configuration. The facility in Kobe, Japan where K resides can deliver up to 24 megawatts, so expansion is possible, but none is currently planned.

Eyes-on the innards of Fujitsu's K supercomputer (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Popular posts from this blog

Virus-based sensors find superbugs in minutes, may lead to safer surfaces

-
Image
Viruses usually have to be rendered inert to work in humanity's favor, as anyone who has received a flu shot can attest. Auburn University has bucked that trend by discovering a way to put active viruses to work in not only diagnosing sickness, but in preventing it in the first place. It's using bacteria-hating (and thankfully harmless) viruses as biosensors to quickly identify superbugs, or antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can sometimes prove fatal. As the viruses change color once they've reached impervious bacterial strains, in this case variants on Staphylococcus, they can reveal superbugs within 10 to 12 minutes -- a potentially lifesaving interval when current purification-driven methods can take hours. Auburn would like to eventually use what it has learned to develop more effective antibacterial glass and similar surfaces. If successfully put into practice, either breakthrough could mitigate what's already a major medical crisis. [Image credit: Bob Blaylo
Read more

Asus Padfone with Tegra 3 coming in early 2012

-
Image
Just as we were settling down to another calm and banterful Engadget Mobile Podcast, our special guest had to go and throw us some hard news. Yup, and rather than making you sit through the entire two-hour recording (pleasant as that would be), we're just going to come right out with it: Nicole Scott from netbooknews.com has it on good authority that the Asus Padfone will be coming out at MWC 2012 in February. What's more, it won't be powered by a Qualcomm Krait S4 as suggested by that strange GLBenchmark we saw earlier -- it will in fact sport a Tegra 3, just like its highly capable big bro the Transformer Prime . See? That's the kind of juicy reward our podcast listeners get for tuning in each week. Asus Padfone with Tegra 3 coming in early 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .
Read more

6 techie gifts for Mother’s Day

-
Image
This Sunday is Mother’s Day, which means it’s time to think about which techie products are suited for your own mother, the moms in the office, extended family, or your wife. Fortunately, there are quite a few new gadgets for 2015 suited for the big day. There’s a digital picture frame that lets you load through a website. There’s even a clock radio that has a trendy flower-print design. 1.  LivingPlug INLET ($25) These colorful wall outlet covers serve multiple purposes. They are safer for kids, since the plugs are located below the faceplate. You can design your own (think: pictures of the kids). One outlet turns into three plugs and you can charge a phone or tablet using USB. 2.  Nixplay Cloud Frame ($100) This low-cost digital frame connects to the cloud so the kids (or grandkids) can stream photos from anywhere in the world. It connects to Facebook so you can add photos that way using a Web app or you can load pictures onto a local camera card. The frame powers down and
Read more