World's fastest supercomputer, "El Capitan," unveiled in Livermore
LIVERMORE— The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) unveiled its $600 million supercomputer, "El Capitan," after about eight years of research and building.
Experts said the "El Capitan" is currently the world's fast and most powerful supercomputer.
"When people talk about running on high-performance computers, this is the main thing. You put two computers in what's known as the blade here. And then you can tack 64 of those into a whole big cabinet. That gives you 128 nodes. And you buy 87 of those racks and you get to 11,136 individual computers," Pythagoras Watson, the team lead of the advanced technology system, told CBS News Bay Area.
He added that the supercomputer conducts real-world simulations that are designed to help LLNL experts conduct research quickly and accurately.
"We can simulate climate, we can simulate gene folding, so all the way up through eventually simulation of nuclear weapons," Watson said.
The system is in early-access mode, meaning more testing and calculations to eventually process classified information. It will soon run sophisticated calculations that simulate nuclear detonations from the U.S.' aging stockpile.
"What you're looking at here is two different computers that are identical. It's just packaging to put them in together. The square hole is where the main processor, that is ultimately where the computer goes," Watson said.
He added that the system's peak performance is at 2.79 quintillion calculations per second. For example, if you went back in time 2.79 quintillion seconds, you'd arrive more than 70 billion years before the Big Bang.
"This is the front and this is the back of the cooling distribution units. Things of this scale, the only way to get the heat out of this system is to use liquid cooling. You really have to have something that is a lot more dense than air to actually cool this stuff," Watson said.
Single, condensed chips combine the computers' main parts with the accelerators and the memory system. Officials said the processing power is equal to about one million of today's fastest smartphones making calculations at the same time.
"Because we stopped doing underground nuclear testing, we needed to replace that with something or replace that with simulating on these very large computers to be able to understand how they age, how we need to go in and maybe replace some components. Are they still effective? And all that is driven initially by being able to simulate what that process is going on," Watson said.
He added that LLNL is consistently collaborating with the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory for the Department of Energy's Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan.
"Have to present letter to the president that the existing nuclear stockpile is safe reliable and secure," he said.
Experts said the "El Capitan" spans about 6,000 square feet, and is about 18 times faster than their previous computer system, Sierra.
"It's about ensuring that these the weapons that we have, that when we need them, after they've been sitting there for 40 years. Are they going to work," Mayor John Marchand of Livermore told CBS News Bay Area.
He said he is proud that scientists from Livermore are paving the way to enhancing national security measures.
"Livermore is really a city of contrast and superlatives. Livermore is only one of six cities in the world to have an element named after us. And to have our name appeared in the periodic table of elements. I'm a chemist, so I think that's really cool," he added.
As for Watson, he shared he has been working with LLNL for the past 24 years and is looking forward to the endless, groundbreaking research to come with this new technology.
"I came straight out of college, right to here. I have always wanted to work with a really big team, and I really love the fact that this is actually something that really helps the country and the world ultimately in doing this research," he said.