GOVERNMENT

PALO ALTO, Calif.--For the third consecutive time, HP ranks as the No. 1 supercomputing provider on the TOP500 Supercomputer list, which categorizes the 500 most powerful installed technical and commercial computer systems worldwide. With 159 entries, representing more than 30 percent of the posted sites, HP has more installations on the TOP500 list than any other technology supplier. Led by its powerful HP Superdome and AlphaServer systems, HP not only increased its share on this exclusive list since its November 2002 showing of 137 entries, but once again secured four of the top 10 spots. "HP's continued No. 1 position on the TOP500 list highlights our sustained leadership in the high-performance computing space and validates our ability to offer technical and commercial customers the most robust portfolio of servers to meet their ever increasing supercomputing needs," said Winston Prather, vice president and general manager, HP High Performance Technical Computing Division. HP Superdome systems accounted for 127 of the company's entries. HP AlphaServer systems represented 21 entries -- three of those in the top 10. Eight sites were powered by Intel Itanium(R) 2-based systems -- including an HP rx2600 server cluster installed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory that placed in the top 10. With four entries, HP has more sites in the top 10 than any other vendor. This includes the most powerful system in the United States -- the HP AlphaServer-based ASCI Q system at Los Alamos National Laboratory -- and the most powerful supercomputer in Europe -- the HP AlphaServer system at the French Atomic Energy Commission. With 13.88 teraflops per second, Los Alamos' ASCI Q is only the second system in the world to ever exceed the 10 Tflop/s mark. The TOP500 ranking of supercomputers is released twice a year by researchers at the Universities of Tennessee and Mannheim, Germany. The list ranks supercomputers worldwide based on the Linpack Benchmark, a yardstick of performance that is a reflection of processor speed and scalability.