Supercomputers/Systems/BGW
USA · decommissioned · hpc
BGW
Also known as Blue Gene Watson
Operated by IBM at IBM Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights) .
Phase 1 seed dataset, compiled by hand. These rows were built from public operator, laboratory and vendor sources. A mechanical second-reader pass has since fetched every cited source: 1092 of 1153 systems have a readable citation that names them, and 40 are genuinely weakly sourced. Every claim carries its source and a confidence tier. Treat anything below verified as a lead, not a citation.
Measured performance
- Rmax
- 91.29 TFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 114.69 TFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 79.6%
- Cores
- 40,960
- Power
- 448 kW
- Per watt
- 0.2 GF/W
Figures are as last publicly reported for the configuration described below, not a live measurement. Where a system was upgraded in place, the post-upgrade configuration is shown and the earlier one appears in the timeline.
What this machine is made of
One row per supplier relationship. “Supplier at build” is the company that shipped the part at the time; where that company has since been acquired, the parent it rolls up to today is shown beside it. That distinction is what makes ticker-level aggregation possible across a thirty-year dataset.
| Role | Part | Supplier at build | Quantity | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integrator | - IBM eServer Blue Gene Solution, 20 racks | IBM | - | Reported | top500.orgde.wikipedia.org |
| CPU | IBM PowerPC 440 700MHz CPUs PowerPC · 2C · 0.7 GHz · 130 nm · 13 W PowerPC 440 700 MHz, 40,960 cores | IBM | - | Reported | top500.orgde.wikipedia.org |
| Interconnect | IBM BlueGene 3D torus Interconnect 3D torus, plus separate collective and barrier networks · 175 MB/s per link per direction Proprietary Blue Gene interconnect | IBM | - | Reported | top500.org |
| Operating system | IBM Compute Node Kernel Operating systems Microkernel, no dynamic scheduling · Proprietary CNK on compute nodes, SLES 9 on front ends | IBM | - | Reported | top500.orgde.wikipedia.org |
The read
IBM's 20-rack Blue Gene/L installation at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, second on the June 2005 TOP500 behind the LLNL BlueGene/L. TOP500 gives 40,960 PowerPC 440 700 MHz cores, 91.29 TFlop/s Rmax, 114.69 TFlop/s peak and 448 kW, on the proprietary Blue Gene network under CNK and SLES 9, and keeps it listed through November 2012. The German Wikipedia article describes 20 racks of 1,024 nodes with two 700 MHz PowerPC 440 processors each, 60 TB of GPFS disk and a 500 TB tape library, with most time given to protein folding and biological simulation. TOP500 is the only source for Rmax, so the tier is reported.
Timeline
Public list appearances
Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.
Site & facility
IBM Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights)
- Location
- Yorktown Heights, NY, USA
Change history
- 2026-10-02 Added BGW, IBM Watson's 20-rack Blue Gene/L, second on the June 2005 TOP500
Source check
We fetched this system's own citations and recorded whether each page actually mentions it. This is a corroboration signal, not a fact check, and it is published so you can see how well the sourcing holds up rather than take it on trust.
| Cited source | Result | Found on the page |
|---|---|---|
| de.wikipedia.org | names system and part | IBM BlueGene 3D torus, IBM Compute Node Kernel |
| top500.org | does not name this system | IBM PowerPC 440 700MHz |
Checked 2026-10-09 by pnpm verify. Re-run it and the table changes with the web.
Further reading
Inside a node
Latency-optimised versus throughput-optimised processors, NUMA, and the end of the host-to-device copy.
The interconnect
Topologies, why latency and tail behaviour matter more than bandwidth, and how the fabric market consolidated.
Programming a supercomputer
The software stack beneath the application, and why the OS is now a sovereignty signal as much as a technical choice.