US Defence Department buys IBM supercomputer

What do they need that for?

The US Defence Department has spent a fortune with IBM on the world's third brainiest supercomputer to model oceanic behaviour and research infectious diseases. The Defence Department's Naval Oceanographic Office paid £15m for the supercomputer, named Blue Ocean. Blue Ocean can process data at six trillion calculations per second, or six teraflops which makes the machine half the size of ASCI White that was until recently the world's largest supercomputer. NEC made an earth simulator supercomputer which currently holds the 'fattest brain of all' medal. It can make almost 41 trillion calculations each second. IBM put the computer together using 37 of its p690 servers.