IBM Blue Gene

This article is about the supercomputer. For the musician, see 'Blue' Gene Tyranny. For the albums, see Blue Gene (Gene Ammons album) and Blue Gene (Gene Pitney album).
IBM Blue Gene
A Blue Gene/P supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory
DeveloperIBM
TypeSupercomputer platform
Release dateBG/L: Feb 1999 (Feb 1999)
BG/P: June 2007
BG/Q: Nov 2011
Discontinued2015 (2015)
CPUBG/L: PowerPC 440
BG/P: PowerPC 450
BG/Q: PowerPC A2
PredecessorIBM RS/6000 SP;
QCDOC
SuccessorSummit, Sierra
Hierarchy of Blue Gene processing units

Blue Gene was an IBM project aimed at designing supercomputers that can reach operating speeds in the petaFLOPS (PFLOPS) range, with relatively low power consumption.

The project created three generations of supercomputers, Blue Gene/L, Blue Gene/P, and Blue Gene/Q. During their deployment, Blue Gene systems often led the TOP500[1] and Green500[2] rankings of the most powerful and most power-efficient supercomputers, respectively. Blue Gene systems have also consistently scored top positions in the Graph500 list.[3] The project was awarded the 2009 National Medal of Technology and Innovation.[4]

After Blue Gene/Q, IBM focused its supercomputer efforts on the OpenPower platform, using accelerators such as FPGAs and GPUs to address the diminishing returns of Moore's law.[5][6]

  1. ^ "November 2004 - TOP500 Supercomputer Sites". Top500.org. Retrieved 13 December 2019.
  2. ^ "Green500 - TOP500 Supercomputer Sites". Green500.org. Archived from the original on 26 August 2016. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  3. ^ "The Graph500 List". Archived from the original on 2011-12-27.
  4. ^ Harris, Mark (September 18, 2009). "Obama honours IBM supercomputer". Techradar.com. Retrieved 2009-09-18.
  5. ^ "Supercomputing Strategy Shifts in a World Without BlueGene". Nextplatform.com. 14 April 2015. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  6. ^ "IBM to Build DoE's Next-Gen Coral Supercomputers - EE Times". EETimes. Archived from the original on 30 April 2017. Retrieved 13 October 2017.