WASHINGTON – 18 Sep 2009: President Obama
recognized IBM (NYSE: IBM) and its Blue Gene
family of supercomputers with the National Medal of Technology and
Innovation, the country’s most prestigious award given to leading
innovators for technological achievement. 

Photo: https://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prn/20090918/NY78058 

President Obama will personally bestow the award at a special
White House ceremony on October 7. IBM, which earned the National
Medal of Technology and Innovation on seven other occasions, is the
only company recognized with the award this year.  

Blue Gene’s speed and expandability have enabled business and
science to address a wide range of complex problems and make more
informed decisions — not just in the life sciences, but also in
astronomy, climate, simulations, modeling and many other areas.
Blue Gene systems have helped map the human genome, investigated
medical therapies, safeguarded nuclear arsenals, simulated
radioactive decay, replicated brain power, flown airplanes,
pinpointed tumors, predicted climate trends, and identified fossil
fuels — all without the time and money that would have been
required to physically complete these tasks.  

The system also reflects breakthroughs in energy efficiency.
With the creation of Blue Gene, IBM dramatically shrank the
physical size and energy needs of a computing system whose
processing speed would have required a dedicated power plant
capable of generating power to thousands of homes.  

The influence of the Blue Gene supercomputer’s energy-efficient
design and computing model can be seen today across the Information
Technology industry. Today, 18 of the top 20 most energy efficient
supercomputers in the world are built on IBM high performance
computing technology, according to the latest Supercomputing
‘Green500 List’ announced by Green500.org in July, 2009.