The InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) today announced that InfiniBand-connected systems grew 18 percent year-over-year, up to 215 systems in November 2010 from 182 in November 2009, according to the latest TOP500 list of the most powerful systems in the world. The IBTA also announced InfiniBand is being used this week to drive the world’s fastest network — SCinet — to deliver demonstrations across the SC10 exhibit floor, including a real-time flight simulator in 3D at speeds up to 120Gb/s.
InfiniBand represents more than 43 percent of all systems on the TOP500. InfiniBand connects the majority of the Top100 with 61 percent, the Top200 with 58 percent, and the Top300 with 51 percent. The total number of InfiniBand-connected CPU cores on the TOP500 list has grown 65 percent, from 1.4 million in Nov. 2009 to 2.3 million in Nov. 2010. InfiniBand connects the majority of the Petaflop systems (four out of seven) on the Top10.
InfiniBand growth on the TOP500 corresponds with the 21 percent year over year revenue growth IDC is seeing in our InfiniBand research. InfiniBand has been dominant in high performance computing for several years [and] our research shows us that the InfiniBand community will continue to drive innovation in the market, meeting the demands of this customer base,” said Lucinda Borovick, research VP at IDC.