Roadrunner tests nukes' reliability

WASHINGTON, June 11 (UPI) -- The National Nuclear Security Administration's new computer improves the agency's abilities to certify that the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile is reliable.

The NNSA, an agency of the U.S. Energy Department, announced the implementation of a new computer called the Roadrunner. The so-called supercomputer is one of the fastest computers in the world, operating at the one petaflop threshold, or 1,000 trillion operations per second, the NNSA reported.

The new Roadrunner computer, housed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and designed to meet the nation's evolving national security needs, will perform calculations to certify that the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile is reliable without conducting underground nuclear tests.

"This enormous accomplishment is the most recent example of how the U.S. Department of Energy's world-renowned supercomputers are strengthening national security and advancing scientific discovery," Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said in a statement.

"Roadrunner will not only play a key role in maintaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent, it will also contribute to solving our global energy challenges, and open new windows of knowledge in the basic scientific research fields."