Supercomputer

DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMPUTER

SUPERCOMPUTER

Supercomputer is a broad term for one of the fastest computers currently available. Supercomputers are very expensive and are employed for specialized applications that require immense amounts of mathematical calculations (number crunching). For example, weather forecasting requires a supercomputer. Other uses of supercomputers scientific simulations, (animated) graphics, fluid dynamic calculations, nuclear energy research, electronic design, and analysis of geological data (e.g. in petrochemical prospecting). Perhaps the best known supercomputer manufacturer is Cray Research.
Approaches to supercomputer architecture have taken dramatic turns since the earliest systems were introduced in the 1960s. Early supercomputer architectures pioneered by Seymour Cray relied on compact innovative designs and local parallelism to achieve superior computational peak performance. However, in time the demand for increased computational power ushered in the age of massively parallel systems.
Here are some examples of supercomputer:
– IBM Roadrunner
– Cray Jaguar
– Tianhe-IA
– Fujitsu K computer
– IBM Sequoia
– Cray Titan

Advantages of supercomputer

The primary advantage that supercomputers offer is decreased processing time. Computer speed is commonly measured in “floating point operations,” or “FLOPS.” Average home computers can perform up to a hundred billion of these operations per second, or 100 “gigaflops.” Supercomputers, however, are tens of thousands of times faster, meaning that calculations that would take your home computer hours or days can be solved by a supercomputer in a matter of seconds.
Supercomputers are usually used to tackle large, real-world problems that would be too time consuming on regular computers. For example, weather forecasters use supercomputers to create models of the weather and to forecast the weather. Obviously, forecasts have to be made in a timely manner to make them useful so the more powerful the computer the better. Only supercomputers have the ability to perform these calculations in a timely fashion. One of the sayings of computing is that the higher the technology, the more trivial the application and the most powerful computers in the world are used by digital effects/computer animation companies. The sheer processing power of supercomputers means that they can be used to do things that ordinary computers simply couldn’t handle. Supercomputers have also permitted great strides in filmmaking and special effects.