IBM breaks up with the NCSA and Blue Water supercomputer project

By Derek Mead August 9, 2011

supercomputer-center-servers-ibm

IBM was with the University of Illinois for three whole years, but apparently it just wasn’t working out.

Yesterday IBM suddenly announced it would axe a multimillion dollar contract with the university’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications to help build a petascale computer by 2012 as part of the Blue Waters project. With funding from the National Science Foundation and U of I, the Blue Waters project is tasked with building a supercomputer capable of sustainable petaflop speeds, or a quadrillion floating point operations per second, using IBM’s Power7 processor cores.

IBM has cited unforeseen complexities and higher costs than initially expected as its reasons for quitting the venture that was worth an estimated $208 million. After having worked on the project for three years, people in the industry expected IBM was a year or less away from delivering its first iteration of the system.

IBM and the NCSA released a statement together that at least gave the appearance of the split being amicable. According to the release:

The innovative technology that IBM ultimately developed was more complex and required significantly increased financial and technical support by IBM beyond its original expectations. NCSA and IBM worked closely on various proposals to retain IBM’s participation in the project but could not come to a mutually agreed-on plan concerning the path forward. IBM will return money received to date and NCSA will return equipment delivered by IBM per terms of the contract.

Despite IBM deciding that it wasn’t really worth it anymore (and really, it probably wasn’t a profitable effort for the company), the NCSA still thinks its can succeed at its goal by the end of next year. If it succeeds, the computer will likely be listed near the top of the Top 500 world supercomputer rankings.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Emerging Tech

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Computing

Why AI will never rule the world

image depicting AI, with neurons branching out from humanoid head

Call it the Skynet hypothesis, Artificial General Intelligence, or the advent of the Singularity -- for years, AI experts and non-experts alike have fretted (and, for a small group, celebrated) the idea that artificial intelligence may one day become smarter than humans.

According to the theory, advances in AI -- specifically of the machine learning type that's able to take on new information and rewrite its code accordingly -- will eventually catch up with the wetware of the biological brain. In this interpretation of events, every AI advance from Jeopardy-winning IBM machines to the massive AI language model GPT-3 is taking humanity one step closer to an existential threat. We're literally building our soon-to-be-sentient successors.

Mobile

The best hurricane trackers for Android and iOS in 2022

Truck caught in gale force winds.

Hurricane season strikes fear into the hearts of those who live in its direct path, as well as distanced loved ones who worry for their safety. If you've ever sat up all night in a state of panic for a family member caught home alone in the middle of a destructive storm, dependent only on intermittent live TV reports for updates, a hurricane tracker app is a must-have tool. There are plenty of hurricane trackers that can help you prepare for these perilous events, monitor their progress while underway, and assist in recovery. We've gathered the best apps for following storms, predicting storm paths, and delivering on-the-ground advice for shelter and emergency services. Most are free to download and are ad-supported. Premium versions remove ads and add additional features.

You may lose power during a storm, so consider purchasing a portable power source, just in case. We have a few handy suggestions for some of the best portable generators and power stations available.

Gaming

Don’t buy the Meta Quest Pro for gaming. It’s a metaverse headset first

Meta Quest Pro enables 3D modeling in mixed reality.

Last week’s Meta Connect started off promising on the gaming front. Viewers got release dates for Iron Man VR, an upcoming Quest game that was previously a PS VR exclusive, as well as Among Us VR. Meta, which owns Facebook, also announced that it was acquiring three major VR game studios -- Armature Studio, Camouflaj Team, and Twisted Pixel -- although we don’t know what they’re working on just yet.

Unfortunately, that’s where the Meta Connect's gaming section mostly ended. Besides tiny glimpses and a look into fitness, video games were not the show's focus. Instead, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wanted to focus on what seemed to be his company’s real vision of VR's future, which involves a lot of legs and a lot of work with the Quest Pro, a mixed reality headset that'll cost a whopping $1,500.