http://insidehpc.com/2007/05/24/africas-new-supercomputer/ HPC News Without the Noise for Supercomputing Professionals | insideHPC Sun, 19 May 2013 10:46:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 http://insidehpc.com/2007/05/24/africas-new-supercomputer/#comment-29481 John West Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:22:58 +0000 http://insidehpc.com/2007/05/24/africas-new-supercomputer/#comment-29481 Koos - I don't think the story claimed that this is the first incidence of supercomputing in South Africa, only that this is the first center of its kind, which is a little ambiguous to me. I do think your definition of a supercomputer is a little too extreme. You can buy an 80 TFLOPS supercomputer for $20 or $30M these days, and that would give you the 15th largest supercomputer in the world today. Petaflops machines are going to be rare for several more years. Koos – I don’t think the story claimed that this is the first incidence of supercomputing in South Africa, only that this is the first center of its kind, which is a little ambiguous to me. I do think your definition of a supercomputer is a little too extreme. You can buy an 80 TFLOPS supercomputer for $20 or $30M these days, and that would give you the 15th largest supercomputer in the world today. Petaflops machines are going to be rare for several more years.

]]> http://insidehpc.com/2007/05/24/africas-new-supercomputer/#comment-29262 Koos Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:52:49 +0000 http://insidehpc.com/2007/05/24/africas-new-supercomputer/#comment-29262 I beg to differ. The centre maybe the first of it's kind in SA, but supercomputing is not. So called "Supercomputing" we have done for a number of years to assist our researchers. We are now in the process of upgrading our hpc cluster to latest technology. One cannot really talk about a "supercomputer" if the capability is only 2.5 Terraflop as above. Supercomputers already approaches Petaflop, if not already achieved. Unless you have a budget of about 50 million and enough money to pay for a 3 Mega Watt power consumption, one will not have a supercomputer. Above system's capability is about 1/400 of that of the latest supercomputer. I beg to differ.
The centre maybe the first of it’s kind in SA, but supercomputing is not.
So called “Supercomputing” we have done for a number of years to assist our researchers. We are now in the process of upgrading our hpc cluster to latest technology.
One cannot really talk about a “supercomputer” if the capability is only 2.5 Terraflop as above.
Supercomputers already approaches Petaflop, if not already achieved.
Unless you have a budget of about 50 million and enough money to pay for a 3 Mega Watt power consumption, one will not have a supercomputer.
Above system’s capability is about 1/400 of that of the latest supercomputer.

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