The US has surpassed China to become home of the world's fastest supercomputer - check out photos of the $200 million machine
- The US is now home to the world's fastest computer, surpassing China, The New York Times reports.
- The new computer, called Summit, is twice as fast as the previous record holder.
- The computer itself takes up more than 9,000 square feet of space, and can complete 200 quadrillion mathematical equations per second.
A $200-million supercomputer in the United States is now the most powerful in the world. The blisteringly fast supercomputer marks the first time in years the US has claimed the title.
Since 2013, China had bragging rights for the world's fastest computer, but Summit, built for Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee by IBM, has now taken that record.
According to the Oak Ridge lab, Summit can complete 200 quadrillion mathematical equations per second. As The New York Times points out, that even if a human completed one equation per second, they would have to live for 6.3 billion years to complete the amount of equations the machine is capable of in one second.
Summit, paid for by government grants, houses a staggering amount of processing components. It's more than twice as powerful as the previous fastest supercomputer (at China's National Supercomputing Center), which is thanks to the 200 pentaflops of processing power.
The computer itself takes up a 9,250 square-foot room composed of rows of units weighing 340 tons total. It's home to 9,216 processing chips made by IBM, and 27,648 graphics processors made by Nvidia. All of this power in one place means that Summit needs 4,000 gallons of water per minute to be cooled, and the electricity that keeps it running is enough to light 8,100 homes.