Thursday, March 05, 2020
Bragging Rights
In the refined world of supercomputers, if you've got it, flaunt it. That's what Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is doing by announcing El Capitan, a supercomputer that can process two quintillion calculations per second. That's two exaflops or better yet, 2,000,000,000,000,000,000 calculations per second, an unimaginable number. It will cost $600 million to build and will take enough electricity to power a town of 12,000 homes. The machine will do classified work -- simulating nuclear explosions -- needed to test the power of the nation's aging arsenal. Lawrence Livermore is publicizing the machine, due to come online in 2023, as a way of showing that it remains on the leading edge of the world of supercomputers. It has thrown the gauntlet down for China and Japan to pick up, if they can. And chances are, they will. It's a never-ending race. Lawrence Livermore might not hold on to bragging rights for more than a year or two, but for now, it is the El Capitan of the industry.
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