The K Computer: PetaScale Computing

The K Computer is the Top500's current (6/11) supercomputer, executing 8.25 quadrillion floating-point operations per second (8.25 PetaFLOPS).

"K" stands for "10-PetaFLOPS" and the machine is almost there.

While the K computer consumes 9.89 MW (think one lightning bolt, or the energy to power 10,000 suburban homes), the computer is relatively efficient and executes 825 MFlops/watt.

Annual power bill: 10 Mega$$.

IBM's BlueGene (eh, Watson?) tops the Green500 list at 1680 MFlops/watt.

PetaFlops in the News

Q: How long does each instruction take to execute?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11644252

China claims supercomputer crown

 

China has claimed the top spot on the list of the world's supercomputers.

The title has gone to China's Tianhe-1A supercomputer that is capable of carrying out more than 2.5 thousand trillion calculations a second.
To reach such high speeds the machine draws on more than 7,000 graphics processors and 14,000 Intel chips.

Key Terms to Understand this Story

CPU speeds are dependent upon the type of instructions being executed: some are hard and some are easy.
FLOPS are hard and, in general, more meaningful than MIPS and MOPS.
SI Prefixes and Large Number Names.