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| IBM to Build Army Supercomputer |
| 2004-08-03 |
| The Army will announce today it has contracted with International Business Machines Corp. to build one of the world's fastest supercomputers to help develop more effective weapons systems. The Defense Department will spend about $15 million on the supercomputer, which will be housed at the Army Research Laboratory's Major Shared Resource Center in Aberdeen, according to Dave Turek, an IBM vice president. The supercomputer will perform at a peak speed of 10 teraflops, or 10 trillion mathematical operations per second, Turek said. A person with a calculator would need 8 million years to finish calculations the supercomputer can make in one second, he said. Last week, the Navy selected IBM to build an even faster computer, at a cost estimated at less than $100 million, to produce weather forecasts for fleets at sea. The Army's new supercomputer -- nicknamed "Stryker," after an armored Army combat vehicle -- will run on Linux, a free, "open source" operating system that is a rival to Microsoft Windows. "These high-performing computing systems allow us to understand the physics behind" how weapons systems work, said Charles J. Nietubicz, director of the Army's research lab in Aberdeen. For example, Nietubicz said, the Army may seek a lighter substitute for a 70-ton tank but "we can't make it more vulnerable. ... We can use composite materials, which may be stronger than steel in some cases. But how do we know it's going to work? Well, you use supercomputers to give the engineers and scientists a handle on whether it's even practical." |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #7 B - Naw, screw Scott McNealy - he's a scumsucking liar, smarmy bastard, and a pluperfect prick... and I didn't like him very much, either. Of course he's no Larry Ellison, that'd be a few more rungs down. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-08-03 11:37:44 PM |
| #6 running on Linux? Sun should have gotten with the program. |
| Posted by: B 2004-08-03 11:04:21 PM |
| #5 The problem is the C-130 is being built and has congressional supporters whose constituents vote. The new armored vehicle is employing no one except a few consultants. Guess which one Congress wants to keep as is and which one needs to be modified to deal with reality. |
| Posted by: Mr. Davis 2004-08-03 4:05:25 PM |
| #4 Is there an engineering or logistical challenge to making the plane fit the tank instead of the tank fitting the plane? |
| Posted by: Chemist 2004-08-03 3:54:48 PM |
| #3 Sounds like they're still trying to make an armored vehicle that can be transported without major disassembly on a c-130 and can still take a hit from an RPG. Sorry guys, unless somebody comes up with a recipie for unobtainium, bolonium, or transparent aluminium an rpg resistnt vehicle is going to be at least 42 tons and be too bulky to cram into a c-130. |
| Posted by: N Guard 2004-08-03 11:07:47 AM |
| #2 Tech ignorance? Supercomputers never, ever run on Windows OS. And don't get me started on RPGII. Why would you put the page eject column next to the line feed column? [leading to an unfortunate use of massive amounts of paper in an unsupervised printer] |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2004-08-03 9:55:20 AM |
| #1 Stryker," after an armored Army combat vehicle -- will run on Linux, After an armored vehicle 'eh. Hmmmm, probably should ask Sgt. Mom about this. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-08-03 9:34:32 AM |