A supercomputer developed in the United States to ensure the safety of its nuclear weapons attained a record-breaking performance of 70.72 teraflops (trillion floating operations per second), making it the fastest computer in the world, a senior US official has announced.

Though the supercomputer is running at one quarter its final size for the Department of Energy, the BlueGene/L (BG/L) beta-System is already asserting US leadership in supercomputing, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said.

"BG/L will reduce the time-to-solution for many computational problems, allowing DOE scientists to explore larger, longer, and more complex problems than ever before.

"A heroic thirty-day calculation on what was the Number 3 supercomputer on the Top 500 list in summer of 2003 would now be completed on this quarter-size BG/L system in about three days," Spencer said.

A product of a multi-year research and development partnership between the Department gf Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and IBM, BG/L will support the Stockpile Stewardship Program's mission to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile without underground nuclear testing.