Ever wondered which are the most powerful supercomputers of all time? Supercomputers which with their supersonic speed broke various computing barriers and also brought in revolution in varied fields like nuclear science, medicine, environment and weather. The computing power of these computers is way beyond your imagination.
So here I have compiled some of the most powerful computer in the world. I hope you will like it.

A new ADDITION >> China has recentrly taken top spot by China’s Tianhe-1A (Milky Way) to be the fast computer in the world. Details can be seen on BBCNews

Cray-1

Cray-1 was the world’s fastest machine that was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976. Cray-1 boasted a speed of 160 million floating-point operations per second. The first model of the Cray-1 (Cray-1A) weighed 5.5 tons.

Cray-2

Launched in 1985, the machine held the title of the world’s fastest supercomputer between 1985-1989. Cray-2 was capable of 1.9 gigaflops peak performance. Cray-2 was predominantly developed for the United States Departments of Defense and Energy. Due to the use of liquid cooling, it was nicknamed `Bubbles’.

Connection Machine-5 (CM-5)

Launched in 1991, Connection Machine-5 (CM-5) held the crown for the world’s fastest supercomputer in 1992. The machine intended for artificial intelligence applications and symbolic processing found remarkable success in the field of computational science.
Fujitsu Numerical Wind Tunnel

Known as the Numerical Wind Tunnel, the machine was built by Fujitsu and Japan’s National Aerospace Laboratory. The machine was used to simulate wind turbulence on airplanes and in spacecraft as well as to forecast weather.

ASCI Red

The fastest computer from June 1997 to June 2000, ASCI Red was collaboration between Intel Corp and Sandia Labs.  It was the first computer to break the teraflops barrier, which after the processor upgrade passed 2 teraflops.

ASCI White

ASCI White, an IBM system, replaced ASCI-Red as the fastest supercomputer in 2000. ASCI White held the spot for world’s fastest supercomputer for two years from 2000-2002. It was capable of computing 12.3 trillion operations per second.

The Earth Simulator

Built by NEC for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute and the Japan Marina Science and Technology Center, the Earth Simulator (ES) was the fastest supercomputer in the world from 2002 to 2004.

Blue Gene/L

Currently the seventh fastest supercomputer in the world, IBM BlueGene/L held the title of world’s fastest supercomputer for four years from 2004 to 2008. The supercomputer is located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s. BlueGene/L (BGL) clocked 478.2 trillion floating operations per second.

IBM Roadrunner

IBM Roadrunner was crowned No. 1 in June 2008 after becoming the first supercomputer to break one petaflop/s. IBM’s Roadrunner managed 1.042 petaflops. The supercomputer is located at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Jaguar

The world’s fastest supercomputer according to TOP500 supercomputer list of 2009 is Cray XT5, also known as Jaguar. Jaguar bagged the No. 1 spot, beating IBM’s Roadrunner, who held the top crown from 2008 to 2009. It can perform more than 1 quadrillion calculations per second.

Author Ahsan Mukhtar

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