ASCI White

ASCI White will possess more than 160 trillion bytes of IBM disk storage capacity, holding 16,000 times more data than the average desktop PC. At a peak computational performance of 12.28 teraflops, or trillions of calculations per second, it could simultaneously process web transactions for every man, woman, and child on the planet in one minute.

ASCI White is a 512-node RS/6000 SP, 1000 times more powerful than the "Deep Blue" supercomputer that defeated chess grand master Garry Kasparov in a celebrated 1997 match, and capable of solving in one second what a human being with a calculator would need 10 million years to figure out. The new RS/6000 SP requires more than a little space to house the 2,000 miles of copper wiring contained in the microprocessors needed for its demanding tasks?n area the size of two basketball courts, in fact.