SGI, a global expert in HPC and data centre solutions, has unveiled Altix UV, expanding the definition of supercomputing. SGI Altix UV is targeted at high-end supercomputing, very large-scale databases and data analytic environments. SGI Altix UV leverages next generation Intel Xeon x86 processors to deliver the fastest, most scalable shared memory supercomputer in the world. SGI Altix UV has been on display at Supercomputing 2009 in Portland, Oregon.

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Thomas D'Agostino congratulates the Advanced Simulation and Computing programme for two supercomputers ranked in the TOP Green500's top 10 most energy-efficient supercomputers in the world as of November 2009. The two computers in the top 10 are housed at Los Alamos National Laboratory: Cerrillos (number 4) and Roadrunner (number 9). Six other supercomputers housed at NNSA sites were also ranked in the TOP Green500 list.

For the second year in a row, NASA's Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, was certified by the TOP500 list as one of the fastest supercomputers in the world as measured by the LINPACK Benchmark. The fastest supercomputer on the November 2009 list based on an open systems approach (commodity processor, operating system and interconnect), the Pleiades supercomputer ranked sixth overall. It is powered by SGI's Altix ICE 8200EX, which helps the world's most sophisticated HPC installations solve their most complex scientific computing problems. Recently, the system was enhanced with 2,304 additional Intel Xeon X5570 processors (9,216 cores) to drive advanced earth science research.

BEinGRID (Business Experiments in GRID) is coming to a key transition stage. The project financed by the European Commission is ending but the achievements are taken forward in IT-Tude.com. Over the past four years BEinGRID has identified clear business needs to be met by Grid technologies. 25 pilots covering industrial sectors such as finance, advanced manufacturing, agriculture, tourism and health, have focused on solving real problems using different Grid technology solutions for collaboration, performance and enabling new services. The project's applications and innovative solutions are promoted at the ICSOC/ServiceWave 2009 event held in Stockholm. And the results demonstrated show how businesses may profit from distributed computing - from Grid to Cloud solutions.

IBM has introduced the world's largest private Cloud computing environment for business analytics, which will provide IBM sales teams and developers new levels of insight to better meet the needs of clients worldwide. The Cloud will launch initially with more than a petabyte of data, the equivalent of more than 300 billion ATM transactions. IBM also launched a new solution, the IBM Smart Analytics Cloud, for clients to build their own private Cloud environments based on the same Cloud infrastructure that IBM is using internally.

In its third run to knock the IBM supercomputer nicknamed "Roadrunner" off the top perch on the TOP500 list of supercomputers, the Cray XT5 supercomputer known as Jaguar finally claimed the top spot on the 34th edition of the closely watched list. The newest version of the TOP500 list, which is issued twice yearly, will be formally presented on Tuesday, November 17, at the SC09 Conference to be held at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.