Charm++ Workshop 2004
          Keynote Talk

Title: The IBM BlueGene/L Supercomputer

Speaker: Manish Gupta
         IBM T. J. Watson Research Center

BlueGene/L, a massively parallel supercomputer being developed by IBM in 
partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, represents a new 
way to build supercomputers. BlueGene/L uses system-on-a-chip technology, 
combining embedded PowerPC processors with powerful networks integrated on 
the same chip, to achieve high levels of performance with low space and 
power consumption. An 8-rack BlueGene/L system recently achieved a 
sustained performance of 36 teraflops on the standard LINPACK benchmark, 
passing the previous record held by the Earth Simulator. BlueGene/L is 
poised to reach 360 peak teraflops in 2005 when a 64 rack system with over 
130,000 IBM PowerPC processors is installed at the Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory. This talk will give an overview of the hardware and 
software design of the BlueGene/L system. In particular, we will describe 
the challenges in scaling the system to tens of thousands of nodes, while 
maintaining a familiar programming and development environment. We will 
present our early results and experiences in dealing with these 
challenges.