Earth Simulator

The Earth Simulator ('''ES''') was the fastest Supercomputer in the world from 2002 to 2004, located at the Earth Simulator Center (ESC) in Kanazawa-ku (ward), Yokohama -shi, Japan . The computer is capable of 35.86 Trillion (35,860,000,000,000) Floating-point calculations per Second , or 35.86 TFLOPS. The system was developed for NASDA , JAERI , and JAMSTEC in 1997 for Climate Simulation . Construction started in October 1999 , was completed by February 2002, and the site officially opened on March 11 , 2002 . The project cost 7.2 Billion Yen . Earth Simulator was surpassed by IBM 's Blue Gene/L prototype on September 29 , 2004 .

Built by NEC , the ES is based on their SX-6 architecture. It consists of 640 nodes with eight Vector Processor s and 16 Gigabyte s of Computer Memory at each node, for a total of 5120 Processor s and 10 Terabyte s of memory. Two nodes are installed per 1 Metre x 1.4 metre x 2 metre cabinet. Each cabinet consumes 20 KVA of power. The system has 700 terabytes of Disk Storage (450 for the system and 250 for the users) and 1.6 Petabyte s of Mass Storage in Tape Drive s. The ES is almost five times faster than IBM ASCI White .

It has been able to run Holistic simulations of global climate in both the Atmosphere and the Ocean down to a precision of 10 km.

The ESC has several special features that help to protect the computer from natural disasters or occurrences. A wire nest hangs over the building which helps to protect from lightning. The nest itself uses high-voltage shielded cables to release lightning Current into the ground. A special light propagation system utilizes halogen lamps, installed outside of the shielded machine room walls, to prevent any magnetic interference from reaching the computers. The building is constructed on a Seismic isolation system, comprised of rubber supports, that protect the building during earthquakes.

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Earth Simulator