C.5 Supercomputers

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A Supercomputer1) Rouse, Margret; Definition of supercomputer, WhatIs.com, Accessed 8 December 2020, https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/supercomputer is a computer performing at or near the currently highest operational rate for computers. Traditionally, supercomputers have been used for scientific and engineering applications handling very large databases or do a great amount of computation (or both). Although advances such as Multi-core Processor and General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU) have enabled powerful machines for personal use (see: desktop supercomputer, GPU supercomputer), by definition, a supercomputer is exceptional in terms of performance.

According to Rouse1) At any given time, there are a few well-publicized supercomputers that operate at extremely high speeds relative to all other computers. The term is also sometimes applied to far slower (but still impressively fast) computers. The largest, most powerful supercomputers are really multiple computers that perform Parallel Processing. In general, there are two parallel processing approaches: Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) and Massively Parallel Processing (MPP).

Rouse1) reports that as of June 2016, the fastest supercomputer in the world was the Sunway TaihuLight, in the city of Wixu in China. A few statistics on TaihuLight:

40,960 64-bit, RISC processors with 260 cores each.Peak performance of 125 petaflops (quadrillion floating point operations per second).32GB DDR3 memory per compute node, 1.3 PB memory in total.Linux-based Sunway Raise operating system (OS).Some of the uses for supercomputers are2) Pappas, Stephanie; 9 Super-Cool Uses for Supercomputers, livescience.com, 30 April 2010, Accessed 8 November 2020, https://www.livescience.com/6392-9-super-cool-supercomputers.html :

Recreating the Big BangUnderstanding EarthquakesFolding proteinsMapping the blood streamModeling swine fluTesting nuclear weaponsForecasting hurricanesBuilding BrainsMore recently, supercomputers have been used to model how the Cronavirus spreads.3) Kelleher, Suzanne Rowan; Japanese Supercomputer Shows How Coronavirus Spreads In A Dining Setting, Forbes, 19 October 2020, Accessed 8 December 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2020/10/19/viral-video-japanese-supercomputer-shows-how-coronavirus-spreads-in-a-dining-setting/?sh=57971027333f

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