U.S. to Build Fastest Supercomputer

Geeks and nationalists alike may begin celebrating America’s plans to build a supercomputer that will dwarf China’s current record-holder. “The new computing behemoth is designed to crunch 20,000 trillion calculations (20 petaflops) per second, according to PhysOrg. That handily beats China’s Tianhe-1A supercomputer, which can do 2,500 trillion calculations (2.5 petaflops) per second. Such calculations look staggering on a human scale. It would take 120 billion people with 120 billion calculators 50 years to do what the Titan supercomputer might do in a day.”