Not that long ago Petascale computing was just a dream, a goal the world of supercomputing aspired to achieve at some point (one petaflop equals one quadrillion floating point operations per second), but with the introduction of Japan’s K Supercomputer, that goal has been surpassed ten times over.
Fujitsu's K (Kei Soku Keisanki) Supercomputer
Not only are each of today’s top ten supercomputers all rated above one petaflop in performance, but Fujitsu’s K Computer is slated to surpass 10 petaflops when it’s completed in 2012. Even in its current state of development, the K Computer is performing three times faster than the previous leader in the field, China’s Tianhe-1A Supercomputer.
As of today, the current top 10 supers are:
- 8.16 petaflops, K Computer, Japan
- 2.57 petaflops, Tianhe-1A, China
- 1.76 petaflops, Jaguar, United States
- 1.27 petaflops, Nebulae, China
- 1.19 petaflops, TSUBAME 2.0, Japan
- 1.11 petaflops, Cielo, United States
- 1.08 petaflops, Pleiades, United States
- 1.05 petaflops, Hopper, United States
- 1.05 petaflops, Tera-100, France
- 1.04 petaflops, Roadrunner, United States
To illustrate how fast supercomputing technology has advanced in recent years, the last time Japan held the crown of fastest supercomputing was when the Earth Simulator held the number one spot from 2002 to 2004; that computer only delivered 35 teraflops, a level of performance that wouldn’t even make the top 500 list today! And for those of you who may be wondering which computer first surpassed one petaflop, it’s the IBM Roadrunner, which is barely hanging on to the number ten spot.
IBM's Roadrunner Supercomputer
So what’s on tap in the coming months? By the end of the year NCSA’s Power7-based Blue Waters system should be online, surpassing the 10-petaflop mark, and Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s Blue Gene/Q Sequoia supercomputer is hoping to achieve 20 petaflops when it’s deployed in 2012.
