I.B.M. intends to announce this week its plans for a commercial version of the Blue Gene/L supercomputer, intended to study protein-folding.

Two new Blue Gene/L prototype supercomputers are ranked in the top 10, as the fourth fastest and the eighth fastest.

A Blue Gene/L machine that I.B.M. is building for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory should be up and running next year. According to I.B.M. and Livermore scientists, that machine should be as much as nine times as fast and one-tenth the size of the fastest machine today, the NEC Earth Simulator. It also uses one-tenth or less as much power as most other supercomputer designs.