“Earth Simulator System” Achieves World’s Top Computing Efficiency on the LINPACK Benchmark

Tokyo, 4 June, 2009 - NEC Corporation today announced that the renewed “Earth Simulator System,” which NEC deployed for the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (President: Yasuhiro Kato, Hereinafter: JAMSTEC), an independent administrative organization, on 1 March, 2009, achieved sustained performance of 122.4 TFLOPS (*1, TERAFLOPS) and computing efficiency (*2) of 93.38% on the LINPACK Benchmark (*3).

The system secured Japan’s No.1 sustained performance position (No.16 worldwide) and achieved the world’s top position in terms of computing efficiency according to the “TOP500 Supercomputing Sites,” published in November 2008.

The renewed Earth Simulator System is a large-scale vector supercomputer that consists of 160 nodes of NEC’s SX-9/E and boasts peak performance of 131 TFLOPS. This vector supercomputer is equipped with a high performance CPU (102.4 GFLOPS), which is ranked the world’s fastest CPU currently operating. The system’s scores were achieved through large-scale shared memory, high speed data transfer between the CPU and memory, and an ultra high speed network connecting nodes, in addition to the CPU’s performance.
 
The performance of the renewed Earth Simulator System enables greater accuracy and understanding in the provision of advanced warnings for complex phenomenon that include global warming, air and ocean pollution, the El Nino effect, severe rainfall, hurricane movement forecasts and others. The system is also expected to contribute to greater Japanese economic activity, the resolution of environmental issues and the understanding of changes in the Earth’s crust and earthquake occurrences.

Looking forward, NEC will continue to strengthen the development of advanced performance vector supercomputers while also providing customers with optimal systems through scalar supercomputers and PC cluster systems.

About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation is one of the world's leading providers of Internet, broadband network and enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of a diversified global base of customers. NEC delivers tailored solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron devices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networks, and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through NEC Electronics Corporation. The NEC Group employs more than 150,000 people worldwide. For additional information, please visit the NEC website at: http://www.nec.com.  

(*1) TERAFLOPS One TERAFLOP is a floating-point calculation speed based on 1 trillion occurrences every second.
(*2) Computing Efficiency A performance ratio to a system’s theoretical performance.
(*3) LINPACK Benchmark The LINPACK Benchmark is a program that measures computer performance. The “TOP500 Supercomputing Sites,” a comparison program of supercomputers’ performance, has been adopted as a standard benchmark.

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