A new supercomputer built by IBM using the same used in the PlayStation 3 console (the Cell processor) is reportedly the world's fastest.

Codenamed 'Roadrunner', the machine is capable of 'petaflop speeds', computing rates topping one-thousand trillion calculations per second.

The machine is said to be twice as powerful as the world's second fastest computer, also built by IBM. The system has been built for a government lab, and it will be used to monitor nuclear weapons, as well as taking on astronomy, climate change and more.

"Roadrunner will enable us to tackle problems we couldn't tackle before," said lab boss John Morrison.

"We'll be able to run a different level of problems. We'll be able to do calculations that we wouldn't even consider before."

By Luke Guttridge