What is Supercomputer?
Let's find out Supercomputer meaning, definition in crypto, what is Supercomputer, and all other detailed facts.
A Supercomputer is a significantly more powerful version of a general-purpose computer. Features that distinguish a supercomputer are their greater capacity which enables them to execute a large number of operations, and increased processing power.
Floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) is the metric used to calculate a supercomputer’s performance. The most powerful supercomputers today reach speeds of 100 quadrillion FLOPS.
Control Data Corporation was the first computer company to introduce a supercomputer. They were first presented to the public in the 1960s thanks to Seymour Cray who spent most of his time researching and developing the first supercomputer.
We have come a long way from that first supercomputer that was barely utilized for anything back in the 1960s to the supercomputers of the 21st century that are key to technological advancements.
You might be wondering what purpose supercomputers serve in the 21st century. There are various problems a supercomputer can be used to solve. For example, weather prediction. In order to provide accurate information, meteorologists have to collect data from all over the world. Since it comes from various sources, there is a huge amount of data that general-use computers are not able to compute. On the other hand, supercomputers have all of the capabilities to process the data and provide precise results.
However, they’re not the perfect machine as of yet. Coming back to the weather prediction example, in order to predict the weather 2 weeks ahead requires one sextillion FLOPS which is not something that any of the current supercomputers is able to process.
Superpower countries including the United States, China, and Russia are racing to develop and complete the greatest supercomputer. Not too long ago, the countries of the European Union, the United States, and China were racing to complete the first supercomputer that had the capability to reach one quintillion FLOPS in speed. Therefore, it’s only a matter of time until a more powerful supercomputer is introduced by one of these countries.
When it comes to the crypto sector, supercomputers are utilized in the development of projects. They could also be the possible solution to the high energy consumption and scalability problem.