Press Announcement on SuperPC System

On October 30, 1997, the Tsukuba Research Center announced the SuperPC System (RWC PC Cluster II) as a result of RWC research activities.

This SuperPC System is a computer (see photo) that connects many PCs together using a high-speed computer network in compact enclosures, and has the computing power comparable to a supercomputer. This systemｹs features are as follows:

• Performance comparable to leading-edge supercomputers is achieved with the same number of processors by using 64 PCs connected by a high-speed computer network with new system software.
• The system is compact and easy to maintain.
• A multi-user environment is enabled, in which multiple users can use the system simultaneously while enjoying the performance equivalent to a supercomputer
• Quadruple application-level communication performance and triple single processor performance is attained compared to the RWC PC Cluster I (32 PCs) developed last year.

Based on this technology, low-cost supercomputers constructed from PCs linked by high-speed computer networks will soon become readily available.

Reporters from newspaper companies including Mainichi, Yomiuri, Asahi, Nikkan Kogyo, Nippon Keizai, Ibaraki, and Jiji Tsushin, as well as the specialty magazine, Nikkei Electronics, and TV stations like TBS and NHK attended the press conference and enthusiastically took notes; and the Nippon Keizai, Nikkan Kogyo, Mainichi, and Ibaraki newspapers and Nikkei Electronics magazine printed articles. Also, NHK broadcasted this press release during their news program at noon on November 1 (Saturday).

In addition, this SuperPC System will be demonstrated at SC'97 (High Performance Networking and Computing International Conference) to be held in San Jose, USA, November 15 through 21. The next RWC NEWS will cover this demonstration. See the article on Page 10 and http://www.rwcp.or.jp/lab/pdslab/ for technical details.

SuperPC System