When we go to buy a computer, we always ask about its speed and performance, as these two factors are two important aspects in a computer. We always want our computer to work faster and better. Do you know which computer gives a high performance? The supercomputer. But the problem is that we can’t use it for our personal purpose.



History-



In 1960, the first supercomputers introduced. But in 1976, ‘Cray 1’ became the successful supercomputer in the history which developed by Cray Research. The speed of Cray 1’s microprocessor was 80 MHz. Cray 1 used vector processing method. Mids 1980s a new supercomputing method was introduced called parallel processing which was faster than vector processing method. On July 1st, 1991, India’s first supercomputer PARAM 8000 was launched. Currently, Sunway TaihuLight is the most powerful supercomputer with processing speed of 125 petaFLOPS





The Sunway TaihuLight, China



Why did we call this type of computer as a supercomputer?



The reason behind this is that they give a higher level performance when we compare it with the general desktop computer. They are the world’s largest and fastest computers. The processing speed of a supercomputer is measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS).For performing computationally intensive tasks we use a supercomputer. Supercomputers are used in various fields like weather forecasting, gas and oil exploration, molecular modeling, physical simulation and quantum mechanics. India’s supercomputer Aaditya is used for climate research and operational forecasting. Currently, Pratyush is the India’s fastest supercomputer with processing speed 6.8 petaFLOPS.





The Tianhe-2 (MilkyWay-2), China



Top 5 fastest supercomputer in the world:





S.No. Name of Supercomputer Country Processing speed 1. Sunway TaihuLight China 125 petaFLOPS 2. Tianhe-2 (MilkyWay-2) China 33.86 petaFLOPS 3. Piz Daint Switzerland 19.6 petaFLOPS 4. Titan United States 27 petaFLOPS 5. Sequoia United States 17.2 petaFLOPS





The Titan, USA



Here are some fascinating facts about the supercomputer….



1. Seymour Cray is called as “The father of supercomputer”.

2. Many present personal computers are faster than the first supercomputer.

3. Currently, China has a most powerful supercomputer.

4. Supercomputer needs lots of power (Tianhe-2 consumes 24 MW of power) and also need lots of space.

5. Supercomputer use lots of power, therefore, they need a better cooling system to keep it cool so that various components of it can work efficiently.

6. Supercomputers are helping us to unveil the past as well as the future of the universe.

7. The supercomputer simulation was used to predict the collision of two galaxies (Milky Way and Andromeda).

8. The molecular interaction between the molecules can be predicted using the supercomputer simulation.

9. Using supercomputer simulation we can better understand earthquakes. We can predict how earthquakes waves will travel globally.

10. Many countries use supercomputer simulation for testing nuclear weapons, because actual site testing of nuclear weapons are banned by United States. Therefore they used simulation to predict impacts of nuclear weapons.







Written by

Kanchan Ramteke