Barcelona boots Europe's most powerful supercomputer

Made from blade servers and sticky-back plastic

Barcelona can now officially claim to have the most powerful supercomputer in Europe, following the inaugural booting of the MareNostrum at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC).

The machine, which will be used for research in aerodynamics, biology and genetics, has a peak calculation rate of 40 Teraflops. This puts it at number four in the world, according to the Top 500, a list of the world's most powerful supercomputers.

It is also one of the smallest supercomputers, coming in at just 1,290 square feet, and 100,000 pounds. Its power consumption (630kW) is also relatively low.

The MareNostrum is built from blade servers available on the open market, and uses a Linux operating environment. IBM says the machine represents a new approach to high performance computing.

The computer is housed in the chapel on the Polytechnical University of Barcelona, which along with the Spanish and Catalan governments, makes up the consortium that runs the BSC.

You can read more about it here. ®

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