PERCS

In this phase, IBM collaborated with a consortium of 12 universities and the Los Alamos National Lab to pursue an adaptable computing system with the goal of commercial viability of new chip technology, new computer architecture, operating systems, compiler and programming environments.

[2] IBM was chosen for Phase III in November 2006, and granted $244 million in funds for continuing development of PERCS technology and delivering prototype systems by 2010.

[4][5] The machine was subsequently delivered by Cray Inc, using a combination of GPUs and CPUs for processing, and a network with reduced global bandwidth capabilities.

Power775 / PERCS systems were subsequently deployed at roughly two dozen institutions in the U.S. and other countries, in installations ranging from 2,000 to over 64,000 Power7 processing cores.

Major deployments have been for network-intensive and memory-intensive applications (as opposed to FLOPS-intensive), such as weather & climate modeling (ECMWF, UKMO, Environment Canada, Japan Meteorological Agency), and scientific research (University of Warsaw, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and several other government laboratories in the U.S., and other countries).

Opened PERCS rack with liquid cooling and 12 Power 775 modules ( Blue Waters , circa 2010)