For the past few years, the fastest supercomputer in the world has been located in Oak Ridge National Laboratory right here in the United States of America.  However, all thing must come to an end, and Oak Ridge’s XT5 Jaguar has been bested.  The world’s most powerful supercomputer is now China’s Tianhe-1A (Milky Way), located in the National Center for Supercomputing in Tianjin, China.

“This is all true,” said the University of Tennessee’s Jack Dongarra.  “I was in China last week and talked with the designers, saw the system, and verified the results.  I would say it’s 47% faster than the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s machine, 1.7 Pflops (ORNL system) to 2.5 Pflops (Chinese system).”

What makes the system uniquely powerful is its combination of parts.  It features thousands of Intel processors combined with thousands of Nvidia graphics processors.  The 155-ton beast, kept in 100 refrigerator-sized cases, uses the Intel processors for more complicated tasks and the Nvidia chips for smaller, quicker calculations.  Here’s hoping they use it for its stated purpose, not anything dangerous or hacker-y.

Tags: world’s fastest supercomputer, world’s fastest computer, Tianhe-1A, Jack Dongarra, Tianjin, China, supercomputers, super computer, National Center for Supercomputing, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, computers, technology, Intel, Nvidia, XT5 Jaguar

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]