"SUPERCOMPUTERS: U.S. targets fastest supercomputer"
Winning back the title of world's fastest supercomputer is the goal of a new $25 million contract awarded by the Energy Department to Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Center for Computational Science. The award, announced Wednesday (May 12) by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, seeks a sustained capacity of 50 trillion calculations per second (teraflops) and a peak capacity of over 250 teraflops. Japan's Earth Simulator holds the record at nearly 40 teraflops. Abraham said the National Leadership Computing Facility (NLCF) would be a five-year program that pools the partnership's computational resources to create the world's fastest supercomputer. Along with regaining the speed title, officials said weather prediction, biological protein folding as well as battlefield and nanoscale simulations could all benefit from faster supercomputers.
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