An Overview of Super Computers
What is a Supercomputer?
A supercomputer is a general-purpose computer that has much higher computing capabilities than a conventional desktop or laptop. Even though today’s widely applicable PCs are fast, there will always be a need for significantly more powerful machines. After all, today’s portable PC would have been a supercomputer just a few decades ago. Seymour Roger Cray of Control Data Corporation first introduced supercomputers in the 1960s, and since then, they have been used extensively in science and design.
A supercomputer’s performance is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS). A measure of computer speed known as FLOPS is helpful in scientific computing domains that call for floating-point calculations, also known as calculations that encompass extremely small and extremely large real numbers and typically demand quick processing times. A more precise measurement than million instructions per second is this one (MIPS).
Since 2017, we have had petaFLOPS supercomputers, which are capable of performing over 100 quadrillion FLOPS. It’s also noteworthy that all 500 of the fastest supercomputers in the world now run Linux-based operating systems.
History of Supercomputers
The US, China, European Union, Taiwan, and Japan are already competing to develop supercomputers that are quicker, more powerful, and more advanced technologically.
It’s possible to date the US’s first significant advancements in supercomputing to 1964, the year Control Data Corporation released the CDC 6600. (CDC). Seymour Cray, an American electrical engineer, and supercomputer architect created what is usually regarded as the first successful supercomputer, clocking up to three megaFLOPS in performance. In place of slower germanium transistors, Cray used faster silicon transistors. Additionally, he addressed the issue of overheating by including refrigeration in the supercomputer architecture. In 1969, the CDC 7600 replaced the CDC 6600.
Cray developed the 80 MHz Cray-1 in 1976, four years after he left CDC, and it went on to become one of the most successful supercomputers ever, with performance clocking in at an astonishing 160 MFLOPS. The Cray-2, which was deployed in 1985 and performed at 1.9 gigaFLOPS, was the second-fastest supercomputer in the world at the time, after Moscow’s M-13.
Supercomputers Today
Since 1993, the TOP500 list has ranked the top supercomputers according to how quickly they can process floating-point numbers. With a startling 117 units sold out of the TOP50 supercomputers in 2018, Lenovo overtook HP as the top seller of supercomputers worldwide. The TOP500 supercomputer list’s IBM Summit is currently the fastest supercomputer. Next is The Sierra, a second American supercomputer with a maximum speed of 125 petaFLOPS. Sunway TaihuLight in Wuxi, China; Tianhe-2 in Guangzhou, China; Dell Frontera in Austin, USA; Piz Daint in Lugano, Switzerland; and AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure (ABCI) in Tokyo are some more recent instances of supercomputers (Japan). The US tops the top 10 list with five supercomputers, followed by China with two.
Types of Supercomputers
The two broad categories of supercomputers:
General purpose supercomputers.
There are three subcategories of general-purpose supercomputers:
- Vector Processing Supercomputers
Supercomputers that use vector or array processors are called vector-processing supercomputers. These processors are the antithesis of scalar processors, which can only process one element at a time; they effectively function like a CPU that can quickly perform mathematical operations on a huge number of data components. - Cluster Computers
Cluster computers are collections of linked computers that function as a single entity. These could be parallel clusters, director-based clusters, two-node clusters, or multi-node clusters. The cluster of computers running the Linux operating system and free software to create parallelism is a well-known example. Examples of such clusters that provide single-system image functionalities include Sun Microsystems’ Grid Engine and Open SSI. While two-node clusters are utilized for fault tolerance, director-based and parallel clusters are frequently used for high performance. With the aid of massively parallel clusters, supercomputers are created where a sizable number of processors work in parallel to tackle many components of a single, more complex issue. The ILLIAC IV, a massively parallel computer with 64 processors and more than 200 MFLOPS, was the first of its kind. - Commodity Computers.
In essence, commodity clusters are made up of a lot of commonplace PCs connected by high-bandwidth, low-latency local area networks.
Special-Purpose Computers
- Special-purpose computers are supercomputers that have been created specifically to accomplish a given activity or aim. They frequently make use of Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), which provide superior performance. A few well-known examples of special-purpose supercomputers include Belle, Deep Blue, and Hydra, all of which were designed to play chess, as well as Gravity Pipe for astrophysics, MDGRAPE-3 for protein structure computation, and molecular dynamics.
What Is a Supercomputer Used For?
In the 1970s, weather forecasting and aeronautical research were the primary uses of supercomputers (see Cray-1); however, in the decade that followed, they began to be utilized for probabilistic analysis and radiation shielding modeling. During the 1990s, supercomputers were employed for 3D nuclear test simulations as well as brute force code breaking. Supercomputers have been employed for molecular dynamics simulation throughout the past ten years, beginning in 2010.
The applications of supercomputers today also include climate modeling (weather forecasting) and life science research. For instance, the IBM Blue Gene/P computer has been used to simulate artificial neurons with a number of connections that are equivalent to around 1% of the human cerebral cortex, which has 1.6 billion neurons. Governments are also using supercomputers; the Advanced Simulation and Computing Program, run by the US federal agency National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), uses them to oversee and model the US nuclear weapons program.
We already know that supercomputers operate very quickly, but what do they truly perform? What tangible advantages do they provide? Supercomputers can be utilized in any industry where processing massive volumes of data are necessary. Here are some examples:
Weather Forecasting
Increasing the precision of weather forecasts is arguably the simplest use of supercomputers. Supercomputers assist in improving the accuracy and speed of weather forecasting by gathering and analyzing more weather data as well as taking historical forecasting accuracy into account.
Supercomputers have the added benefit of assisting us in understanding the effects of climate change and developing strategies to mitigate it. We are aware that Microsoft is constructing a supercomputer with a billion pounds in funding from the UK government for the same use.
Running Simulations
A wonderful technique to forecast results from an activity without actively engaging in it is to run simulations. For example, doing aircraft simulations aids in the understanding of atmospheric drag and the development of more aerodynamic designs. This contributes to the safety and fuel efficiency of airplanes. Running nuclear test simulations and performing tests and demonstrations for military usage are two other examples. The tests that can be carried out in a simulation would ordinarily require real, expensive equipment.
Scientific Research
Supercomputers simplify the task of working with big amounts of data for scientists by providing speedier findings. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, IBM’s supercomputer Summit let researchers “perform very large quantities of simulations in epidemiology, bioinformatics, and molecular modeling,” which helped them combat the virus.
NASA researchers can use supercomputers to “simulate the movements of air masses and water around the planet to investigate Earth’s climate, hunt for exoplanets, analyze the behavior of black holes, or design aeronautical or aerospace vehicles,” according to their research.
A Supercomputer In Your Pocket
You may be familiar with the well-known Moore’s Law. According to this theory, computers double in speed every two years, resulting in an exponential increase in processing capacity, enabling humans to complete activities that were previously thought to be impossible.
Virtual reality, cloud gaming, the metaverse, and many more ideas were once the exclusive domain of a small number of specialists and geeks. Due to the advancement of our technology, we are already close to realizing all of this in the present. Fortunately, you don’t need to be an expert to utilize the technology. Before you know it, it’ll be a part of your daily existence.
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