Compaq, nuclear lab teaming on supercomputer

Compaq Computer Corp. is teaming with nuclear research facility Sandia National Laboratories and biotechnology company Celera Genomics to build what is anticipated to be one of the fastest supercomputers in the world.

The deal, announced Friday at a Department of Energy news conference in Washington, will result in a computer that can perform 100 trillion calculations per second--100 "teraflops"--by 2004, Bill Blake, vice president of high-performance technical computing at Compaq, said in an interview. A second phase, which will be open to other bidders besides Compaq, will result in a "petaflop" machine 10 times faster, the same speed as the Blue Gene machine under design at IBM. Full story. -- Stephen Shankland and Erich Luening, Special to ZDNet News