Last month, I wrote about scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory proposing that the STI (Sony, Toshiba and IBM) Cell processor used in the upcoming Sony PlayStation 3 could be used to make high-performance supercomputers. It seems that that theory has now come true: IBM last week announced it would build a supercomputer for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

IBM is partnering with AMD on the supercomputer design, which will use IBM's Cell Broadband Engine processor. The chip, which IBM designed for the PlayStation 3, performs as much as 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

The supercomputer, called Roadrunner, will be built at a cost of $110 million. It is expected to be the United States' response to Japan's stated intention to build a petaflop computer. There are presently five petaflop computer projects underway in the United States.

The supercomputer, which will run Linux, will consist of 16,000 STI Cell processors in IBM BladeCenter H servers and 16,000 AMD Opteron processors in IBM x3755 servers. It will be installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where it will be used to safeguard and manage the nuclear weapons stockpile. It will consume 12,000 square feet of floor space and be completely installed by 2008.

Roadrunner, according to IBM's claims, will be four times as fast as the Blue Gene/L supercomputer.

* For more about IBM's Cell-based servers, read these NetworkWorld.com stories: "IBM, Mercury team up on Cell-based blade server"; "IBM unveils new BladeCenter chassis, blades".