Supercomputer

Supercomputers are large mainframe computers that are extremely fast and powerful. The high-performing machines are used primarily for scientific and engineering applications. They are used for code breaking, extremely complex mathematical calculations, weather prediction, and a variety of other purposes.

Background

Both supercomputers and traditional computers are composed of a select number of key parts. All computers contain some form of central processing unit, or CPU. The CPU acts as the brain of the computer. It performs all of the machine's calculations. The hard disk drive, commonly called a hard drive, serves as long-term storage. Random access memory (RAM) serves as short-term storage. Other specialized parts allow the machine to display a graphical interface, or to process sound.

All of these parts are attached to a motherboard. The bus, a specific part of the motherboard made for communication, connects the RAM and drives to the motherboard, allowing them to communicate with the processor. The motherboard also allows input devices, such as keyboards, mice, and scanners, as well as output devices, such as printers, to communicate with the processor.

Most computers utilize some form of operating system. The operating system is the most important software, or programming, that runs on a computer. It interfaces directly with the computer hardware and allows the user to give the computer commands. Without an operating system, a computer user would have to know coding languages to utilize a computer. There are many different operating systems available to consumers.

Overview

The first supercomputer was called Colossus. It was built by the British during World War II to function as a code breaking machine. Composed of massive numbers of vacuum tubes and digital switches, Colossus was the first electronic computer. The massive machine could read more than five thousand characters a second. This was a revolutionary amount of computing power for the time. Colossus was used to break the incredibly complex Lorenz SZ42 cipher, a secret code utilized by Adolf Hitler's commanding officers.

In the 1950s, companies began producing specialized computer models for general sale. The world realized that computers could be applicable for a wide variety of tasks, and computers quickly became smaller and cheaper. While the average consumer was still uninterested in purchasing a computer, many businesses wanted computer technology. However, the mass-produced computers built for these corporations were several orders of magnitude less powerful than the computers built for government agencies. The divide between consumer-oriented computer technologies and government-owned supercomputers began to grow. That divide only increased over the next decade.

In the early 1960s, the United States government requisitioned and funded the development of the IBM 7030 and the Rand UNIVAC LARC. These were two of the first machines intentionally built as supercomputers. They were drastically more powerful than any machine available to consumers and were intended for use in national defense calculations.

The IBM 7030 and the Rand UNIVAC LARC set a precedent in the computer development world that continued into the modern era. Governments and corporations with massive amounts of resources funded the creation of extremely powerful supercomputers that utilized new technology. As supercomputers are not mass-produced, none of this technology was directly available to consumers. However, inevitably, the parts used in creating supercomputers eventually became smaller in size and cheaper to manufacture. At this point, they were used in consumer-friendly machines, driving the consumer electronics industry forward.

In the late 1960s, the supercomputer market was primarily limited to one company, the Control Data Corporation (CDC). The US government funded this company's growth, paying for the development of multiple supercomputers throughout its existence. Many of the company's engineers left to form a new company, Cray Research. Together, the two companies dominated the supercomputer market until the late 1970s. These companies spurred the development of the mass-produced central processing unit. Before this development, most computer processors were designed specifically for each computer model. A mass-produced CPU allowed more computers to be released in shorter periods and allowed more adaptable, varied models to be built.

In the early 1980s, the supercomputer industry saw a shift in construction. Instead of being built around a single, extremely powerful processor, several companies began to create supercomputers that contained multiple independent computers linked together by high-speed cables. These multi-CPU machines could be scaled to meet specific tasks. As processors and other computer parts became faster, supercomputers became drastically more powerful. Soon, each new supercomputer model was many times more powerful than its predecessors were. By the mid-1990s, multi-CPU supercomputers had completely erased single-CPU supercomputers. Over the next decades, supercomputer networks grew larger, eventually including dozens of powerful, high-speed servers.

While supercomputers are not common, modern supercomputers are no longer the exclusive property of governments. One of the most well-known modern supercomputers, named Watson, was built by the technology giant IBM. Named after IBM's founder—Thomas J. Watson—the supercomputer combines complex artificial intelligence–based programming with a massive and powerful network of more than 90 servers. Watson is capable of calculating more than 80 trillion operations per second, boasts more than 15 terabytes of RAM, and contains more than 2,800 processor cores. Watson is capable of a type of primitive learning. Additionally, when asked a question, Watson can search its massive databases and formulate an answer on its own.

Watson is capable of independently analyzing massive amounts of data. In 2011, Watson defeated two champion contestants on the game show Jeopardy! It was able to parse questions, search out relevant data, and provide correct answers faster than either human contestant. Watson-like machines have been commissioned for use by health care professionals and law firms. As of June 2024, the world’s fastest supercomputer was the United States' Frontier computer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The computer could process information at a maximum speed of 1.102 quadrillion points of operations per second, which is also written as 1.102 exaFLOPS.

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