Tennessee Lab Will Be Home To World’s Fastest Computer, Unless Someone Beats Them To It

A team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory installs the Titan supercomputer in September 2012. It reigned as the fastest computer in the world — until one in China was build less than a year later. Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory may once again be home to the world’s fastest supercomputer — and that’s not an easy title to keep. It announced last month it’s building a machine called Summit, capable of running several times faster than the current leader in China, around 150 to 300 quadrillion (that’s 15 zeros) calculations per second.

Listen to Buddy Bland, director of the ORNL computing facility, describe its massive power and talk about why it’s so hard to keep the top spot.

 

The computer will cost up to $280 million, according to an ORNL spokeswoman.