Supercomputer Pioneer Roadrunner To Shut Down

A supercomputer, which was once the world's fastest and the first to perform a million billion calculations per second, is being decommissioned.

Roadrunner spent five years testing the reliability and safety of the US's nuclear weapons stockpile at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nuclear facility in New Mexico where atomic bombs were developed in the 1940s.

"Roadrunner was a truly pioneering idea," said Gary Grider of the Laboratory's High Performance Computing Division.

"Roadrunner got everyone thinking in new ways about how to build and use a supercomputer. Specialised processors are being included in new ways on new systems, and being used in novel ways.

The supercomputer has about 55 miles of cable (Picture: LANL)

"Our demonstration with Roadrunner caused everyone to pay attention."

Roadrunner combines two different kinds of processors on an industrial scale, which was unique when the supercomputer was launched in 2008.

It was designed to perform high-speed calculations and has been used to understand how nuclear weapons work, as well as helping scientists map out the universe and see how viruses spread.

But it is expensive to run and is being replaced by newer computers which are more energy efficient and can better handle and store the large amounts of data being generated.

Roadrunner was described as "truly pioneering"

Although the computer is being switched off this weekend, it is not quite the end for Roadrunner.

Before it is dismantled, researchers will have about a month to do experiments to help guide the design of future supercomputers.

"These are things we never could try while Roadrunner was running production problems," Mr Grider said.

"Even in death, we are trying to learn from Roadrunner."

Although Roadrunner was the first computer to break the petaflop barrier of one quadrillion calculations per second, it is estimated that sometime between 2020 and 2030 supercomputers will be able to perform one quintillion calculations per second - 1,000 times faster than Roadrunner.

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