QPACE (QCD Parallel Computing on the Cell Broadband Engine) is pursuing the development of a massive parallel, scalable supercomputer for applications in lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The machine structure is a three-dimensional torus of identical processing nodes, based on IBM's PowerXCell 8i processors. These nodes are tightly coupled by an Xilinx Virtex-5-based FPGA, application-optimized network processor attached to the PowerXCell 8i processor.
The three Identical QPACE supercomputers at Jülich Research Centre, University of Regensburg and University of Wuppertal are as of November 2009 topping the Green500 list of most energy efficient supercomputers in the world[1][2] and are at the same time ranking at 110, 111 and 112 place on the Top500 list of most powerful supercomputers.
Each of the QPACE installations comprise 4608 3.2 GHz PowerXCell 8i processors housed in four racks, reaching sustained performance of 43 TFLOPS while drawing 59.49 KW.