Intel said the space agency and SGI developed and deployed the Itanium 2-based supercomputer in less than six months as part of "Project Columbia."

The Intel-NASA system leapfrogged the BlueGene/L system IBM is building at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, but BlueGene/L ultimately is expected to be the more powerful supercomputer due to its highly scalable, custom-built architecture.

On Oct. 11, IBM announced an initial build of BlueGene/L hit 36.01 teraflops, becoming the most powerful supercomputer, unseating NEC Corp.'s Earth Simulator, which has held the top position for two years, at 35.86 teraflops. When complete, next May BlueGene/L is expected to pack 65,000 dual-core processors and deliver 360 teraflops.

NEC countered IBM days later with its SX-8 supercomputer, which the company claims will run at 58.5 teraflops if evaluated by the same benchmark used for Blue Gene/L.

A key aspect of the BlueGene/L architecture is its scalability, along with power efficiency, IBM said. Blue Gene/L consumes only 1/28th the power of the Earth Simulator at about the same performance level.