Blue Gene

In preparation for the 2010 Chess World Championship, grandmaster Veselin Topalov rented time on a Blue Gene/P supercomputer installed in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and operated by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Sofia University. Since there was no chess software for this supercomputer, Topalov hired computer engineers to modify existing chess programs for use on it.

The Bulgarian Blue Gene/P supercomputer

This Blue Gene/P computer, which was used by Topalov, was installed in Bulgaria on September 9, 2008. In 2010, three Bulgarian students competed against the Blue Gene/P computer in three rapid chess matches. The computer took two of the three matches.

“During my preparation for the match, my manager, Silvio Danailov, and I decided to approach something non-standard and to seek additional resources to increase the advantage over my opponent. It turned out that there is such a possibility. We found that in Bulgaria is installed and running one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world—Blue Gene/P of IBM. And because the computers and the chess software are necessary components in the preparation of the modern grandmasters, we decided to use the vast computational power of this machine.”

Veselin Topalov

Chess grandmaster

“Topalov training with super computer Blue Gene P,” Chessdom.com

2010

The Team

Blue Gene

Veselin Topalov at the 2010 Chess World Championship

The Bulgarian Blue Gene/P supercomputer