Overheard: Beyond the petaflop

Breaking the petaflop barrier, a feat that seemed astronomical just two years ago, won’t just allow faster computations. These computers will enable entirely new types of science that couldn’t have been done before. Betsy Mason, Supercomputers Break Petaflop Barrier, Transforming Science

The U.S. Department of Energy announced that the XT Jaguar, housed at its Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has hit a peak performance of 1.64 petaflops. That’s more than a quadrillion mathematical calculations per second.

Officially, the computing power will be used for simulation. Simulating climate conditions, for example. Or maybe nuclear explosion modeling.