IT abroad: Supercomputer running on flash memory to appear in California

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (California, USA) is launching work over an unusual supercomputer known as Gordon that will use only flash memory to handle massive amounts of data. Engineers believe that Gordon running on memory microchips is capable of handling massive data at much faster speeds when compared to hard drive disk systems.

The supercomputer is said to crank through data-intensive problems, such as analyzing human genomes, 10 times faster than traditional designs.

Gordon is expected to reach 300 terabytes of flash memory, and 64 terabytes of RAM. The system will be designed with "supernodes" of shared memory, an architecture that gives the computer outstanding I/O performance. Gordon set the record with 36 million input/output operations per second.

If Gordon existed now it would be ranked 48 on the Top 500 list of supercomputers.