Supercomputer

The world's fastest commercial supercomputer has been launched by computer giant IBM.

Blue Gene/P is three times more potent than the current fastest machine, BlueGene/L, also built by IBM.

The latest number cruncher is capable of operating at so called "petaflop" speeds - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

Approximately 100,000 times more powerful than a PC, the first machine has been bought by the US government.

It will be installed at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois later this year.