Last month, I released a short two-minute ”Future Flash” video on the growing power of supercomputers (posted below). In it, I said that IBM was expected to release a supercomputer capable of 10 quadrillion calculations in 2010. Well, I have now come to learn that the company will double that capacity to 20 petaflops — or 20 qaudrillion calculations—by 2012. In other words, I was off by sixteen zeros or 10,000,000,000,000,000. For those of you counting at home, it would take you roughly 16 billion years to perform 20 quadrillion calculations with a calculator—and that’s assuming you could work 365/24/7.
Interested in other supercomputer-related madness by America’s leading futurist, Jack Uldrich? Check out these past posts:
Supercomputers; Solving Problems Big and Small
Future Flash with Jack Uldrich: SuperComputers
