Yesterday , on July 29 , the White House made a pretty bigannouncementfor the figure man : by 2025 , the U.S. hopes to have on its hands a supercomputer so powerful that it can do one quintillion , or 1018 , operations each 2nd . For those baffled by that unfathomably big number , it ’s abillion billion .
This program is part of an Executive Order , put out by President Obama , to see the foundation of anambitious schemecalled the National Strategic Computing Initiative ( NSCI ) . The ultimate target for the next decade is to keep the U.S. ’s current attitude as world leaders in the ontogenesis of High - Performance Computing ( HPC ) system .
Marrying unbelievably powerful computer with vast quantity of storage , supercomputers have been pivotal in a variety of research theatre , help scientists to model an raiment of physical systems and rude phenomena . For example , researchers can simulate what befall when galaxies collide , or when molecules interact with one another . They can even aid us to promise short- and retentive - terminus vogue call for dissimilar scenarios , such as the potential impacts of climate alteration , or what could happen during a disease outbreak .
Although the functioning of these computers can be assessed in a variety of ways , a common measure is “ fizzle , ” or the act of reckoning that can be performed each second . As it stand , the speedy supercomputer is China ’s Tianhe-2 , which , run at 33.86 petaflops , is capable of quadrillion of calculations per second , BBC Newsreports . But Obama desire to reach the next level , pace into the exascale kingdom . Exascale computers are those capable of at least an exaflop , which is about a thousand times the speed of petascale systems . So that ’s a jolly bragging leap .
But the electric potential of such systems could be huge . With the capacitance to rapidly dissect such vast sum of data point , scientists could make significant progress in fields such as personalised medicine . By processing vast medical databases , scientists could better promise how sure drug may interact with different populations of people or somebody with certain genetic variations , key those that may be especially susceptible or unsuitable for various therapies . what is more , the storage and processing capacity could allow scientist to fuse existent data with simulations , which could tolerate for better prediction of conditions or climate change , for example .
Although there seems to have been a focal point on velocity , the President ’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has pointed out that in high spirits - public presentation computer science is n’t just about bust , but also power . In order for the field to get along , researchers need to create systems that are capable of keep up with huge amounts of rapidly grow and changing data . There is distinctly a tidy sum of work to be done , but the ambitious finish does not go unachievable .
[ ViaBBC NewsandWired ]
