Japan’s ‘K’ tops the list of world’s Top 500 Supercomputers

As of now, the world’s fastest supercomputer, ‘K’, succeeded in giving China and the US a tough competition. Earlier the top position was held by China’s Tianhe-1A.

Built by Fujitsu Company, ‘K’ is as fast as “one million desktop computers connected together.”

‘K’ can perform 8 quadrillion calculations per second
Derived from the Japanese word ‘Kei’ (10 peta or 10 quadrillion), ‘K’ is capable of performing 8 quadrillion calculations per second. A quadrillion refers to “one followed by 15 zeroes and in computer jargon the speed is known as 8.2 petaflops.”

“Use of the K computer is expected to have a groundbreaking impact in fields ranging from global climate research, meteorology, disaster prevention, and medicine, thereby contributing to the creation of a prosperous and secure society.”—Spokesperson from RIKEN Institute

Interestingly, ‘K’ is three times powerful than China’s Tianhe-1A, and five times faster than five of its nearest competitors.

Nearly $1.2 billion was incurred to build up this supercomputer at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan.

‘K’ can power 10,000 homes
It was way back in 2004 when Japan’s Earth Simulator, by NEC Corp. and the Japan Agency for Marine-earth Science and Technology, was crowned as the fastest supercomputer.

Accommodated in a climate-controlled store at the institute, ‘K’ has 672 cabinets and nearly 70,000 processors.

The energy consumed by ‘K’, which costs £6m a year, is equivalent to the power provided in 10,000 homes.

A spokesperson from the RIKEN institute said, “Use of the K computer is expected to have a groundbreaking impact in fields ranging from global climate research, meteorology, disaster prevention, and medicine, thereby contributing to the creation of a prosperous and secure society.”

Japan pips China, US
By entering in the Top 500 Supercomputer list, Japan has toppled its rivals, China and US.

Besides, Japan’s Tsubame 2.0 by the Tokyo Institute of Technology has also managed to attain the fifth rank in the Top 500 list.

Though the US has failed in grabbing the first position, more than half of the rankings in the fastest computers list have been acquired by the US.

Professor Jack Dongarra, who is in-charge of making the list of the world's top supercomputers, said, “It's a very impressive machine - it's a lot more powerful than the other computers.”