Pittsburgh Center Unveils a Bigger, Faster Supercomputer Called 'Big Ben'

Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) now has it own "Big Ben" -- only this technological bellwether rings out in teraflops. PSC acquired Big Ben, the first XT3 system to be shipped from Cray, Inc., with a $9.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Image: Big Ben, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's Cray XT3, high-performance computer can perform 10 trillion calculations per second. Credit: Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center

Big Ben can perform 10 teraflops, or 10 trillion calculations, per second, making it 2.4 times faster than PSC's former high-performance computing leader, LeMieux. But like LeMieux, Big Ben will serve as an integral component in the NSF-supported TeraGrid, the world's largest, most comprehensive cyberinfrastructure for open scientific research.

A host of dignitaries attended the July 20 ceremony, including NSF Director Arden L. Bement, Jr. and the foundation's assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, Peter A. Freeman.

Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center

Source: NSF

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