IBM, Intel and Linux dominate Top 500 supercomputer market

IBM, Intel and Linux dominate the world’s 500 most powerful supercomputers, according to the TOP500 supercomputer list.

According to the list, the world’s most powerful supercomputer is the US Department of Energy’s Sequoia system, installed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The IBM BlueGene/Q system uses 1,572,864 processor cores (for comparison, most tablets and smartphones use four processor cores), and is capable of around 16.32 quadrillion mathematical calculations (petaflops) per second.

In terms of operating systems, 462 out of the 500 supercomputers on the list use Linux, 25 run on Unix, and just 13 are based on Windows.

The preferred processor manufacturer for supercomputers is Intel, powering 374 of the supercomputers, followed by AMD (63 supercomputers) and IBM’s Power processors (58 supercomputers).

IBM remains the dominant vendor in the market, supplying 213 of the supercomputers, followed by HP with 141 of the systems.