IV 
110TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1498 
To honor the visionary and extraordinary work of Los Alamos National 
Laboratory and IBM on the Roadrunner supercomputer. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 24, 2008 
Mr. WELCH of Vermont submitted the following resolution; which was referred 
to the Committee on Armed Services, and in addition to the Committee 
on Science and Technology, for a period to be subsequently determined 
by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall 
within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
To honor the visionary and extraordinary work of Los Ala-
mos National Laboratory and IBM on the Roadrunner 
supercomputer. 
Whereas on May 26, 2008, the Roadrunner supercomputer of 
the Los Alamos National Laboratory broke a historic 
barrier by being powerful enough to run at a petaflop, 
1,000,000,000,000,000 calculations per second, making 
the Roadrunner supercomputer the fastest computer in 
the world; 
Whereas International Business Machines Corporation (re-
ferred to in this resolution as ‘‘IBM’’) and Los Alamos 
National Laboratory overcame the challenges of techno-
logical innovation to achieve a petaflop ahead of schedule; 
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•HRES 1498 IH 
Whereas the Roadrunner supercomputer will enable the 
United States to tackle new and more challenging prob-
lems; 
Whereas the Roadrunner supercomputer will be primarily de-
voted to national security in the United States and will 
be used for ensuring the safety and reliability of the 
weapons stockpile of the United States and for research 
in astrophysics, materials science, energy research, medi-
cine, and biotechnology; 
Whereas Cell-based supercomputer technology of IBM is the 
most energy efficient in the world; 
Whereas the new high-performance computing capabilities en-
abled by hybrid Opteron-Cell machines of IBM in the 
Roadrunner supercomputer of Los Alamos National Lab-
oratory enhance and improve United States competitive-
ness; 
Whereas from maintaining employment records for millions 
of people in the United States, to providing technology to 
help the United States run the Ballistic Missile Early 
Warning System, land on Mars, end the physical testing 
of atomic weapons, and now help national security by en-
suring the safety of the nuclear weapons stockpile of the 
United States and researching issues of critical impor-
tance such as human genome science and climate change, 
the partnership of IBM with the Federal Government 
and the dedication of that partnership to solving critical 
problems that are seemingly impossible have remained 
unrivaled and relentless for more than 80 years; 
Whereas the Roadrunner supercomputer is the most recent 
achievement of the long-standing science and technology 
leadership of Los Alamos National Laboratory, from the 
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•HRES 1498 IH 
Manhattan Project to the role of the Laboratory today as 
a premier national security science laboratory; and 
Whereas, the Roadrunner supercomputer funding was initi-
ated with $35,000,000 in the Energy and Water Develop-
ment Appropriations Act, 2006 (Public Law 109–103): 
Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives honors 
the visionary and extraordinary work of Los Alamos Na-
tional Laboratory and IBM for— 
(1) pushing the barriers of science and pro-
viding the United States with historical high-per-
formance computing capabilities that will allow some 
of the most challenging problems in science and en-
gineering to be solved; and 
(2) achieving the capability to make petaflop 
calculations, which— 
(A) is considered a crucial milestone inter-
nationally; 
(B) is considered a sign of the competitive-
ness of the United States in the critical new 
area of high-performance computing capability; 
and 
(C) will allow the United States to solve 
even bigger and more complex problems from 
the safety of the nuclear deterrent of the 
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•HRES 1498 IH 
United States to human genome science and cli-
mate change. 
Æ 
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