IBM is building lower-cost supercomputers

May 13, 2008

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IBM has started building lower-cost supercomputers for Wall Street firms and movie studios using CPUs and chips designed for video-game consoles.

IBM's new BladeCenter QS-22 uses a new generation of the chip developed for Sony's PlayStation 3. The machine is up to five times faster and has 16 times more memory than IBM's earlier offering, said IBM today.

Dan Olds, an analyst with Gabriel Consulting Group said "IBM has doubled its share of supercomputer shipments through R&D. The market is growing by 15 percent to 19 percent a year in shipments."

IBM is making supercomputers affordable to businesses in a bid to boost hardware sales, which sagged 6.7 percent last quarter. The company's share of the supercomputer market increased to 46 percent in November of last year from 26 percent in 2002, according to the Top500 Project, a supercomputer tracking group.

The new CPU is called the Power-X-Cell 8-i and will also be used in IBM's RoadRunner supercomputer project, its highest-performance computer for government use. RoadRunner will be used at the U.S. Energy Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory next month.

Two years ago, Sony, Toshiba and IBM have jointly developed the original PlayStation 3 chip at IBM's research lab in Austin, Texas. Their rivals in the processor market include Nvidia, Intel and AMD.

Threshold Animation Studios Inc., a Santa Monica, California-based film company, will use the new computer to produce at least 18 pictures, including "Food Fight," a movie featuring the voice of Charlie Sheen that will be released sometime in 2008.

The QS-22 with 8 gigabytes of memory sells for $9,995 in the U.S., while the 16-gigabyte version sells for $11,995, said IBM spokesman Jason Stolarczyk.

Platform Computing Inc., a Markham, Ontario-based software maker, is using the technology to speed up financial transactions across global markets.

Simudyne UK Ltd., which makes simulation programs, will use it to help oil and gas companies locate reserves.

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Source: IBM Corp.

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