The latest semi-official numbers concerning the speed of Virginia Tech's "Big Mac" supercomputer rank it as the third-fastest machine on the planet. The system's architect, Srinidhi Varadarajan, said Tuesday evening that the newly completed supercomputer operates at 9.55 trillion operations a second, or 9.55 teraflops. The number has been in flux in the last few weeks as Varadarajan tunes the system. Early numbers suggested the Big Mac was the world's second-fastest supercomputer. A subsequent report dropped the machine to fourth place.
|