Fastest Supercomputer System Begins

Japan's fastest supercomputer system began operations on Wednesday at High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK).

The system consists of Hitachi's supercomputer with a peak performance of 2.15 TFlops and IBM Japan's Blue Gene Solution with a peak performance of 57.3 TFlops. It is capable of making about 59 trillion calculations per second.

KEK has installed the system for studies on high-energy accelerator science such as elementary particle physics and nuclear physics, researchers said. The institute will ask the public to propose specific themes of research activities using the supercomputer system.

KEK concluded a contract with the two companies to lease the system over a five-year period for about 3.5 billion yen.