Science / Medicine : Gains Reported in Soviet Supercomputer Power

An American computer scientist just back from the Soviet Union reports that a group of supercomputers under construction there could put the Soviets closer than ever to the United States and Japan in building the world’s most powerful computers. One of the Soviet machines, called El ‘brus-3-1, is nearing completion and could be tested within six months, according to Peter Wolcott of the University of Arizona’s management information systems department.

Wolcott said the Soviets told him that the machine will have a peak processing rate of about 560 million mathematical operations a second, comparable to the performance of some mid-range U.S. and Japanese supercomputers. Another machine, El ‘brus-3, may attain a peak rate of 11 billion operations per second; however, the prototype of that machine will not be ready before 1992, Wolcott said. Both computers are being built at the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Technology near Moscow, by teams led by Boris Babayan, one of the country’s top computer designers.