Obama will bestow the award at a special White House ceremony on Oct. 7.
IBM, which earned the National Medal of Technology and Innovation on seven other occasions, is the only company recognized with the award this year.
"Blue Gene's speed and expandability have enabled business and science to address a wide range of complex problems and make more informed decisions -- not just in the life sciences, but also in astronomy, climate, simulations, modeling and many other areas," according to IBM. "Blue Gene systems have helped map the human genome, investigated medical therapies, safeguarded nuclear arsenals, simulated radioactive decay, replicated brain power, flown airplanes, pinpointed tumors, predicted climate trends and identified fossil fuelsall without the time and money that would have been required to physically complete these tasks."
With the creation of Blue Gene, IBM dramatically shrank the physical size and energy needs of a computing system whose processing speed would have required a dedicated power plant capable of generating power to thousands of homes, the company added.
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