Supercomputers – Prestige Objects or Crucial Tools for Science and Industry? Hans W. Meuer a 1, Horst Gietl b 2 a University of Mannheim & Prometeus GmbH, 68131 Mannheim, Germany; b Prometeus GmbH, 81245 Munich, Germany; This paper is the revised and extended version of the Lorraine King Memorial Lecture Hans Werner Meuer was invited by Lord Laird of Artigarvan to give at the House of Lords, London, on April 18, 2012. Keywords: TOP500, High Performance Computing, HPC, Supercomputing, HPC Technology, Supercomputer Market, Supercomputer Architecture, Supercomputer Applications, Supercomputer Technology, Supercomputer Performance, Supercomputer Future. 1 e-mail:
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[email protected] 1 Content 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3 2 The TOP500 Supercomputer Project ............................................................................................... 3 2.1 The LINPACK Benchmark ......................................................................................................... 4 2.2 TOP500 Authors ...................................................................................................................... 4 2.3 The 39th TOP500 List since 1993 .............................................................................................. 5 2.4 The 39th TOP10 List since 1993 ...............................................................................................