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Supercomputer

  • How Things Work
  • Grades 4-5
  • 345 words
The Cray-2, the world's fastest supercomputer from 1985 to 1989
The Cray-2, the world's fastest supercomputer from 1985 to 1989 David.Monniaux · cc by-sa 3.0 · source

A supercomputer is a computer with great speed and memory. This kind of computer can do jobs faster than any other computer of its generation. They are usually thousands of times faster than ordinary personal computers made at that time. Supercomputers can do arithmetic jobs very fast, so they are used for weather forecasting, code-breaking, genetic analysis and other jobs that need many calculations. When new computers of all classes become more powerful, new ordinary computers are made with powers that only supercomputers had in the past, while new supercomputers continue to outclass them.

Electrical engineers make supercomputers that link many thousands of microprocessors.

Jupiter (supercomputer) is the fastest supercomputer in Europe, according to media (2025’s third quarter).

Types

Supercomputer types include: shared memory, distributed memory and array. Supercomputers with shared memory are developed by using a parallel computing and pipelining concept. Supercomputers with distributed memory consist of many (about 100~10000) nodes. CRAY series of CRAYRESERCH and VP 2400/40, NEC의 SX-3 of HUCIS are shared memory types. nCube 3, iPSC/860, AP 1000, NCR 3700, Paragon XP/S, CM-5 are distributed memory types.

An array type computer named ILIAC started working in 1972. Later, the CF-11, CM-2, and the Mas Par MP-2 (which is also an array type) were developed. Supercomputers that use a physically separated memory as one shared memory include the T3D, KSR1, and Tera Computer.

Supercomputing centers, organizations

Organizations

  • CINECA; Its “… infrastructure [… is made] of several supercomputers, [… including] Leonardo (picture), … Pitagora, Galileo100, and ADA Cloud”, according to media; CINECA Interuniversity Consortium, Italy

Specific machines, general-purpose

  • Linux NetworX press release: Linux NetworX to build “largest” Linux supercomputer
  • ASCI White press release
  • MCR @ LLNL Linux NetworX Supermicro based Supercomputer “3rd largest supercomputer in 2004”
  • Article about Japanese “Earth Simulator” computer
  • “Earth Simulator” website (in English)
  • NEC high-performance computing information
  • Superconducting Supercomputer
  • Blue Waters Petascale Computing System

Specific machines, special-purpose

  • Papers on the GRAPE special-purpose computer
  • More special-purpose supercomputer information
  • Information about the APEmille special-purpose computer
  • Information about the apeNEXT special-purpose computer
  • Information about the QCDOC project, machines

Where this page comes from

The article above is adapted from “Supercomputer” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact.

Both sources are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, so this page is published under the same licence. You may share and adapt it, including commercially, as long as you credit the original and keep the same licence.

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