Fujitsu Launches New Supercomputer Using 'K' Technology

TOKYO, Nov. 7 (Kyodo) — Fujitsu Ltd. said Monday it has adapted technology from its supercomputer "K," currently the world's fastest, into a commercial model aimed at companies and research institutes requiring high-level computing capabilities. The PRIMEHPC FX10 is capable of theoretical processing performance of up to 23,200 trillion computations per second, and will be marketed globally, the major Japanese high-tech company said.

TOKYO, Nov. 7 (Kyodo) — Fujitsu Ltd. said Monday it has adapted technology from its supercomputer "K," currently the world's fastest, into a commercial model aimed at companies and research institutes requiring high-level computing capabilities.

The PRIMEHPC FX10 is capable of theoretical processing performance of up to 23,200 trillion computations per second, and will be marketed globally, the major Japanese high-tech company said.

Starting with a price of about 50 million yen for a single-rack model, Fujitsu can scale up the system up to a 1,024 rack configuration to achieve the top speed to meet customer needs, it said.

The company plans to start shipment of the new product from January next year and sell 50 systems over the next three years, it said.

The new supercomputer further improves on its technology used in the "K'' computer, being developed jointly by the company and state-backed major research institute Riken, which was ranked in June as the world's No. 1 in current computing speeds.

Simulations using computers have been utilized recently by a wide range of groups including universities, research institutions and private companies, and are expected to be applied to a variety of studies including analysis of earthquakes and weather phenomena, according to Fujitsu.

"The world is facing complicated and difficult problems such as environment, energy and food," said Corporate Senior Executive Vice President Hideyuki Saso at a news conference in Tokyo.

"Through our supercomputer's high-speed processing for simulations, we'd like to contribute to resolving issues, such as in medical areas including drug development and manufacturing," Saso said.

More