TOP500 News
Quantum computing is back in the news – this time courtesy of a research team that has published a blueprint for what they are calling “the most powerful computer on Earth.” According to the press release issued on Wednesday, a quantum computer based on this blueprint can be built with currently available technologies and would have nearly unlimited computational power.
Leaders of some of the largest technology companies in the world spoke out against the Trump administration’s executive order to bar the entry of individuals from seven countries into the US. The order signed last Friday would temporarily prevent citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Libya from entering the country whether or not they had the requisite documentation.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has begun operation of Cheyenne, a 5.34-petaflop supercomputer that will support a range of research related to weather, climate, and other Earth sciences. The system is currently ranked as the 20th most powerful system in the world, with a Linpack mark of 4.79 petaflops.
The introduction of NVIDIA’s Volta GPU architecture is being keenly anticipated by the supercomputing community. As we reported last July, when the rumors of an earlier-than-anticipated Volta release were bouncing around the internet, a 2017 launch of the next-generation Tesla GPUs seems all but certain. The latest speculation is that these first Volta parts will be based on a new 12nm FinFET technology recently devised by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
IBM has added TensorFlow, a machine learning software library developed by Google, to its PowerAI distribution. The move is aimed to expand the options for customers interested in enterprise-ready machine learning systems that IBM is targeting with its Power/NVIDIA GPU server gear.
D-Wave Systems has released 2000Q, its latest quantum computer intended to expand the scope of problems that can be run on qubit-based machinery. In conjunction with the general availability of the 2000Q, D-Wave also announced the first customer: Temporal Defense Systems Inc., a cyber security firm.
Scientists Come Up with Blueprint for Supersized Quantum Computer
Trump’s Travel and Immigration Ban Draws Condemnation from US Tech Community
NCAR Launches Five-Petaflop Supercomputer
Speculation of NVIDIA Volta GPU Ramps Up in Anticipation of 2017 Debut