In news that is totally awesome, Japan’s science ministry has announced it plans to build a supercomputer by 2020 that is 100 times faster than Japan’s current most-powerful supercomputer. The current title is held by a supercomputer called K, which is currently the third-fastest computer in the world, which gives you some idea of how ridiculously fast this new supercomputer will be. That is, assuming that the Ministry can wrangle the money it needs for the project out of next-year’s budget.
To give you some idea of the speed of these things, K is capable of ten quadrillion computations per second. So the new computer would be capable of performing one quintillion computations per second. If you want to see what that number looks like, it’s this: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000.
It’s not clear yet exactly what the speedy new machine will cost or where it will be built, but developing K cost about $1 billion, and researchers are hoping this new computer will be a bit cheaper.
Supercomputers are sometimes seen as symbols of a global game of one-upsmanship, with countries competing to create the fastest computer and thus prove to the world that they are totally the best at science. But Japan doesn’t plan to use its new supercomputer just to wave in competitors’ faces. The computer will be used to do all kinds of awesome things, such as:
- Develop new medicines and medical formulas
- Run simulations and statistical analyses that predict natural disasters like quakes and tsunamis
- Become self-aware, conquer the world
OK, so I made up that last one, but the computer really is going to be used in disaster prevention and medical research, which is awesome. I’m no computer scientist, but I’m guessing that at one quadrillion calculations per second you can run some pretty goddamn complex simulations, which should be a huge aid in disaster prevention and medical developments.
(via Japan Times)
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