IBM Pulls Plug on New Super Computer Because of Cost?
August 16, 2011
Dazzling not only the tech world, but also the pop culture world, IBM made headlines earlier this year when its Watson supercomputer defeated Jeopardy’s best and brightest. Now IBM is admitting a version of defeat in, “IBM Yanks Chain on ‘Blue Waters’ Super: Power7 Petaflops Behemoth Gets Flushed.”
IBM has pulled the plug on the “Blue Waters” petaflops-class, Power7-based supercomputer that it was contracted to build for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. In a statement released today by IBM and NCSA, the two parties said that Big Blue terminated the Blue Waters contract because the Power7-based behemoth was more complex and expensive than they had both bargained for.
The question is, how can IBM control costs and still build high-speed systems that can compete in the market? The manufacturing costs for the anticipated Blue Waters was around $300 million. It was an investment neither IBM nor the NCSA could afford to make. If costs continue to be prohibitive, IBM and other American computer companies might lose the innovative edge for which they are internationally known.
Why didn’t IBM ask Watson, “How do we make this supercomputer cost effective?” Watson, we heard, is trying out for a gig on ER.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 16, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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