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IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer was named the fastest supercomputer in the world Wednesday after breaking the petaflop barrier earlier this month.

(Credit: IBM)

Good news for green tech: The fastest supercomputer in the world is also one of the most energy efficient. That's according to the Top500 supercomputers list, to be released Wednesday at the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, Germany.

Twice yearly, the list measures the 500 most powerful computer systems available commercially. This year, the 31st time the list has been put together, the honor of top supercomputer goes to IBM's Roadrunner, which is housed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. It's the first system to reach 1.026 petaflops (1 petaflop is equal to a quadrillion, or one thousand trillion, calculations per second).

For perspective, last year's most powerful computer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's BlueGene/L--also made by IBM--reached 208.6 teraflops. This year that computer ranked No. 2, reaching a max processing speed of 478.2 teraflops.

Fun fact: the fastest supercomputer in the world--used to monitor the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile--is really just a PlayStation 3 on steroids. Roadrunner is based on the IBM QS22 blades, which are built using advanced versions of the Cell processor in Sony's PS3. It also runs using x86 chips from Advanced Micro Devices, making it the world's first hybrid supercomputer.

In total, Roadrunner takes up 278 refrigerator-size server racks, and connects 6,562 dual-core AMD Opteron and 12,240 Cell chips.

IBM, which continues its dominance of supercomputing, makes 210 of the 500 systems, including 5 of the top 10. Hewlett-Packard is close behind, however. HP makes 183 of the fastest computers, including the No. 8 fastest system known as EKA, located in Computational Research Laboratories' data center in Pune, India.

Rounding out the top 10 is Sun Microsystem's Ranger at No. 4, Cray's Jaguar at No. 5, SGI's Encanto at No. 7, and SGI's Altix at No. 10.

On the processor side, Intel dominates the high-end market with 75 percent of all systems on the list and 90 percent of the quad-core based systems that were ranked.

Supercomputing, which pits the highest-end machines against challenges such as forecasting the global climate in coming decades or finding oil reservoirs underground, is a fast-changing field. The Top500 list once again had the most turnover compared with the preceding list, according to the researchers who compile it.

The main measurement used in compiling the list is the Linpack measurement, which puts each system through its paces by having to solve a dense system of linear equations.

The Top500 acknowledges that Linpack isn't a complete test of system performance, but it's a way to test for performance on a similar problem across each system. The need for a more complete benchmarking system has been under discussion for several years.

Some additional interesting statistics about the June 2008 list:

* Quad-core processors are used in just over half of the systems.

* The bulk of the systems (208 of the 500) contain between 2,049 and 4,096 processors. That's more than double the systems that used that amount just six months ago.

* Four of the top five computers (Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 5) are located in U.S. Department of Energy labs.

* The U.S. continues to be home to the most computing power in the world. Just over half of the systems (257) are located in the U.S. The U.K. is next with 53, followed by Germany with 46, France with 34, Japan with 22, and China with 12.

After "not specified," the most popular application area for these superfast computers is finance (15.2 percent of the list), followed by research (10 percent), geophysics (9.8 percent), information service (6.2 percent), and service (5.2 percent).

Scientists from the IBM Zurich Research Lab and the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin are working on a microchip that uses micropipes of water to cool itself, IBM announced Thursday.

The chip's components are built in a 3D stack instead of side by side on a silicon wafer.

This diagram illustrates the chip-cooling concept. Water in a cooling container (purple) is pumped through integrated spaces between the chip's layers (orange).

(Credit: IBM)

Chips built in a three-dimensional stack formation offer more pathways for info to be processed and can shorten the distance chip information needs to travel by as much as 1,000 times, according to Thomas Brunschwiler, a senior engineer in the Advanced Thermal Packaging Group at the IBM Zurich Research Lab who has been working on the chip for almost two years.

The trouble is that this type of experimental chip structure also generates a large amount of heat.

To address that problem, the team has developed a cooling system consisting of micropipes of water as thin as a human hair (50 microns) that are interspersed between each chip layer.

To prevent an electrical short, the hairlike water pipes are hermetically sealed from the chip's other components first with a silicon wall and then with a layer of silicon oxide, according to Brunschwiler.

To bond the individual pipes from layer to layer without damaging other chip components, the scientists used a solder consisting of a mixture of gold and tin, which has a low melting point.

"This process enabled us to completely seal off the joints. Then we can use water, which is superior to other coolants," Brunschwiler said.

The water-cooled chip, which is intended for use in supercomputers, is 5 to 10 years away from being commercially available. "But before that, one would probably see chips with one core layer and a memory layer sitting on top that can still be cooled with (an) outside system," Brunschwiler said.

While unique in its microscopic scale, IBM's use of water to cool down the heat generated by computer processing is not novel.

Companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard sell server racks with liquid cooling systems. Researchers at Ireland's Tyndall Institute and University of Limerick announced in March that they are working on a liquid cooling system incorporated into the packaging that encases chips. And in April, IBM announced a supercomputer that uses water alongside its processors to cool them.

MENLO PARK, Calif.--The practice of playing up a company's green policies for show was the new black for the past few years. But now actually making and selling green products is what's hot because of its potential to put a business in the black.

At the 2008 Consumer Electronics Emerging Technologies Summit held here in Silicon Valley, venture capitalists, business consultants, entrepreneurs, and representatives of some of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world discussed the new wave of innovation in a rapidly commoditizing industry. It basically comes down to two words: energy efficiency.

And the reason it's important? Because it can make a product stand out. And if consumers can see a real benefit to using products that are environmentally conscious, they'll buy it. And that's potential profit for vendors and manufacturers.

"Before it was something (consumer electronics companies) just said to make themselves look good. Now it's a business imperative," said George Bailey, general manager of IBM Microelectronics.

That's because flashy, visible new breakthroughs in technology in the CE space aren't providing the same profitable bump for as long as it used to. High-definition televisions are a prime example.

"TV manufacturers are troubled in terms of profit," said Bailey. "They're asking, 'How can I add value, recapture profit?' Before it was larger format LCD screen. If yours was bigger you'd make more money. Now we know that's not true."

When the big TV manufacturers come to his division of IBM he says they are all looking for greener, more energy-efficient chips that will make their TVs consume less power because that's a way they can differentiate their product from others on the shelf. New technologies include High-K Metal Gate chips that IBM is working on that "leak" less power and can power smaller devices for longer.

But green-friendly products can be more expensive, which can deter certain types of consumers. A representative from Samsung in the audience said the company has yet to see that consumers are willing to pay for products just because they are "green."

That's why you have to give them a real benefit, not an imagined one that makes them feel good, said Steve Westly, who runs the clean tech venture capital firm The Westly Group.

"You have to give customers a real value proposition. A 'green' truck that gets 16 miles per gallon? Consumers will see through that," he said. A green product "has to have an added benefit."

Even if energy efficiency doesn't attract consumers in the numbers that these manufacturers and investors hope, businesses will be forced to green their products one way or another, Westly said.

"You'll see (environmental standards) dialed up in a government-mandated way," he said. "Government regulations and mandates are only going to increase. Not just here, but globally."

Tibco Software's stock has been up Monday. My sources are tying it to an unsubstantiated rumor that the company is close to being taken out.

On one hand, this consolidation thing has gotten out of control. On the other hand, it remains a great time to be an open-source company, and these types of amalgamations prove how important it is to control your software environment.

A few possible acquirers of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based maker of business software:

• Oracle--unlikely in light of the BEA finalization but anything is possible
• SAP--if anyone needs some good integration software, it's SAP
• IBM--possible, just to take Tibco out and limit Oracle
• Hewlett-Packard--unlikely in light of the EDS news

Word is that things could go hostile, which probably takes IBM out of the equation. Stay tuned.

IBM CEO Sam Palmisano announced a series of retirements and appointments among his executive staff. It continues IBM's tradition of promoting from within.

Nicholas M. Donofrio

(Credit: IBM)

Nick Donofrio, executive vice president of Innovation and Technology and a 44-year veteran of Big Blue, is retiring on October 1, 2008. He will not be replaced directly, Palmisano said, but John Kelly, senior vice president of IBM Research, and Linda Sanford, senior vice president of IBM enterprise on demand transformation, will now report to the CEO.

Bill Zeitler, senior vice president and group executive of the Systems and Technology Group, will retire August 1. He spent 39 years as an IBM employee and launched the AS/400. He will be replaced by Bob Moffat, currently senior vice president of Integrated Operations and a 30-year IBMer.

In other appointments, Tim Shaughnessy, vice president and controller, will become senior vice president of Services Delivery, and Jim Kavanaugh will become IBM's Controller. Jon Iwata, senior vice president of Communications, will add marketing to his responsibilities on July 1, and Bruce Harreld, currently senior vice of IBM Marketing & Strategy, will become senior vice president of Strategy. Both will report to Palmisano. Iwata has been at IBM since 1984 and Harreld since 1995.

The data centers used by tech companies to run their Web sites and corporate networks are notorious energy hogs.

The information and communications technology sector currently accounts for about 6 percent of the nation's power consumption, up from about 2 percent to 3 percent in 2000, according to a report in February from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

In a report to Congress last August, the Environmental Protection Agency predicted that the amount of power used by U.S. data centers would more than double over the next five years, at a cost of $7.4 billion each year. The EPA also suggested that the nation could save up to $4 billion in energy costs, if it made its data centers more energy-efficient.

Those figures have led many tech giants, such as Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Dell, to get behind efforts to reduce power consumption in data centers. Now IBM is ramping up its business of selling power-saving technologies with new tools designed to track and cap data center energy consumption, including power for air conditioning to cool server computers, according to a report from Reuters. The products were announced at an IBM conference Wednesday in Los Angeles.

IBM is also expanding to 27 countries a program begun last year as part of its Big Green Innovations that lets companies earn and trade certificates awarded for verified energy savings, Reuters reported.

"Energy efficiency has become a critical business metric, like product reliability and customer satisfaction," William Zeitler, head of IBM's systems and technology group, told Reuters. "This is a critically important problem in the industry."

Certainly, Big Blue is landing a lot of the Big Green by helping other companies go green.

The initiative has generated nearly $200 million of technology services contract signings in the first quarter and about $300 million in the fourth, Reuters quoted Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge as saying during recent earnings presentations.

I've got a question for you: How are you doing? Sure, of course you're fine. Here's a follow up: How do you know you're doing fine? Tougher question, huh?

What's that, you have a question for me? Why am I asking these inane questions?

Because, when people ask us how we're doing, we respond automatically. I'm fine, we're fine, everything's fine. After all, if we engaged everyone in a rant about the gory truth, nothing would ever get done.

But it doesn't stop there. We don't even engage ourselves in a dialogue about the gory truth, and for much the same reason. We're too busy "living."

The truth is that seemingly simple questions can actually be pretty loaded, so loaded that we'd sometimes rather not know the answer. We have all these sayings about leaving well enough alone. Why upset the apple cart? Why open a can of worms? Don't fix it if it isn't broken. ... Read more

One of the things that distinguishes security from other IT disciplines is its massive scope.

In simple terms, if you own the corporate network, you care about switches, routers, and traffic going from Point A to Point B. If you own security, you have to look up and down the old "technology stack" while keeping an eye of physical security and cross-company business processes. Little wonder why so many companies experience so many data breaches.

For years, the security industry seemed to disregard the broad scope of problems faced by enterprise organizations. Instead, even the biggest security firms like Check Point and McAfee simply offered the threat management widget du jour. This is like your local tire store saying that it is in the business of selling automobiles. Something had to give which is why big enterprise-savvy companies like EMC, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM entered the market.

I met with IBM at last week's RSA Conference in San Francisco, Rather than talk about threat management products from ISS or identity management software from Tivoli, IBM presented a few interesting things:

• A comprehensive security framework based upon enterprise user security requirements rather than its portfolio of products.

• Integration between security and business processes.

• IBM now has a single person, Chris Lovejoy, who is responsible for coordinating security activities across IBM product and business units.

• An aggressive partnering program to enhance its homegrown offerings.

No, IBM doesn't have all the answers. And there are probably lots of areas where others have better products. That said, IBM has organized its security portfolio in a way that meets enterprise requirements at the board level--and not just in the security products test lab.

Between this user-centric framework and its deep resources, IBM ought to win its fair share of security deals moving forward.

The American economy may be teetering on the edge of recession, but it appears for now that the high-tech economy is not.

Google Thursday afternoon joined the list of tech bellwethers reporting healthy first-quarter earnings and signaling confidence in the rest of 2008.

Google's Schmidt had good news for the whole tech industry.

(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

Tuesday, Intel was positively bullish in its forecast for the rest of year. Wednesday, IBM was the same. Now you have the most important company in PCs and servers, the most important business tech company, and the most important Internet company all saying the same thing: We're confident in the rest of the year, "regardless of the business environment we find ourselves surrounded by," as Google CEO Eric Schmidt put it in an earnings call.

What's more, Schmidt indicated in a question-and-answer session with analysts that he believes Google is well-positioned even if the souring economy should hit tech, because targeted advertising, Google's specialty, tends to hold up well when other types of advertising head south.

In order to buy the theory that the tech industry is in no way headed for a meltdown, of course, you need to believe that big companies are a good indicator of the industry's health. In the case of these three outfits, it seems like a good bet.

So what's happening? To start, the global economy is not doing as poorly as the American economy, and the companies we're talking about here have a distinctly international flavor. About 51 percent of Google's revenue comes from international sales (and fears that growth in Google's search ad business was slowing down appear to have been greatly exaggerated.). About 75 percent of Intel's sales are outside the U.S. (though that number is a little misleading because many of those sales are to manufacturers who sell PCs and servers back into the U.S.)

At IBM, international sales accounted for $13.9 billion, compared to $9.9 billion in the Americas. Sales in every geographic region were strong for IBM, but the Americas grew the slowest on year-over-year comparisons: 8 percent growth in the Americas, with 16 percent growth from Europe/Middle East/Africa and 14 percent in the Asia-Pacific region.

There are other factors: Google executives believe that even if total ad spending goes down, they'll benefit from a flight to online ads and, in particular, targeted online ads. So even if sectors such as automotive sales and the financial industry pull back their overall spending, Google is still going to get its fair share.

Intel, on the other hand, may be benefiting from a PC replacement cycle. Gartner analysts predict 11 percent growth in PC sales this year, even with shaky consumer confidence. And as for IBM, with international markets growing so quickly (and even tech spending among big American companies still going strong), there's little to worry about...at least for now.

Can other companies--not so multinational, not so dominant in their respective markets--dare to be as confident? Probably not. But did anyone expect the party to go on forever?