Published twice a year, the TOP500 list ranks the most powerful computer systems according to the Linpack benchmark rating system. The list was presented by Dr. Erich Strohmaier at the International SuperComputing 2006 - the world's leading conference on high-performance computing (HPC).

Further highlights of InfiniBand interconnect usage on the June 2006 Top500 list include:

• The three most powerful supercomputers using industry-standard InfiniBand interconnect are the only entries in the top 10 that use commercially available components - the rest are built on proprietary technologies
• InfiniBand is the only high-speed, low-latency interconnect that reported an increasing rate of 33%, including 16 new supercomputers on the list, while proprietary interconnects, such as Myrinet, showed continued decline
• The average efficiency of all reported InfiniBand-based supercomputers is 72% - far superior to the average efficiency of Gigabit Ethernet connected clusters at 53%

"InfiniBand's continued growth matched with the decline in usage of proprietary interconnects demonstrates that high-performance compute clusters favour industry-standard technologies", stated Thad Omura, vice president of product marketing at Mellanox Technologies. "Widely available 10Gb/s and 20Gb/s InfiniBand performance interconnect solutions are proven to efficiently scale multi-thousand node supercomputers today."