The ambitious plan envisions a new RS/6000 computer named "Blue Gene," capable of more than one quadrillion operations per second, or 1,000 times more powerful than the Deep Blue machine that beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.
Blue Gene will consist of more than one million processors, each capable of one billion operations per second, IBM (NYSE: IBM) said. That would make it 2 million times more powerful than today's top personal computers. Researchers believe they can achieve that level of performance in about five years, when the computer would be put to work on complex genetic mysteries.
"In many ways, Deep Blue got a better job today," said Paul Horn, senior vice president of IBM Research. "If this computer unlocks the mystery of how proteins fold, it will be an important milestone in the future of medicine and healthcare." Proteins, which control all cellular function in the human body, fold into highly complex, three-dimensional shapes that determine their function. A change in the shape of a protein can dramatically change its function, and even a slight change in folding can turn a desirable protein into a disease.
