Supercomputing for a mere $800k

Recent price cuts to IBM's previous-generation supercomputer (the Blue Gene/L) have allowed universities and research institutions to invest in supercomputing technology when they would not otherwise be able to justify the cost. While the latest-generation supercomputer, the Blue Gene/P is well over twice as fast as the L, according to NetworkWorld,

Richard Marchase, vice president for research and economic development at [The University of Alabama, Birmingham, said,] “For our purposes, the L had plenty of capacity.”

UAB has put it to work in computational biology, while Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Stony Brook have also purchased the $800,000 Ls to augment their research facilities. In contrast, the Blue Gene/P costs about $1.3 million and has only found customers in such groups as the US Department of Energy.

I guess 5.6 trillion operations per second is good enough.