When it comes to technology and technological advances, we cannot miss putting our eyes on computers. Today you can find things that years ago were unthinkable, such as, for example, the touch screen or that this same device is becoming thinner and weighs less for our convenience.

But the amazing thing about this world is that what we usually see is only something superficial of everything that lies behind it. It’s at this point that some people wonder what is the most powerful computer in the world.

The reason why we offer you this article is to make it clear to you that you have only seen the tip of the iceberg and that it’s time to know which are the fastest in the world, which have millions of cores, energy efficiency, Intel Xeon processor, artificial intelligence, and more, which ultimately leads us to know high-performance computing or supercomputers.

If you are a lover of technology, but above all computing, you cannot miss the following post and know once and for all the world’s most powerful computer.

What is a supercomputer?

If we are going to talk about the most powerful computers in the world, then the first thing to analyze and define is, what is a supercomputer. Because we are used to those devices that, believe it or not, are the most basic thing there is, compared to what you will know today.

In simple words, a supercomputer is a very powerful computer, whose main purpose is to be able to decrease the total time of resolution. It can also be seen as high-performance computing with special cooling systems that can perform billions of operations in a matter of minutes or even seconds.

At this moment if we are talking about supercomputers, the news comes from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, in which the Marenostrum 5 supercomputer was installed. This is to become the best positioned for the new technological development of the European Union.

This powerful European development aims to be capable of delivering more than 200 petaflops, making it the most powerful computer in the world.

What is a supercomputer for?

Another of the questions, when it comes to knowing which is the most powerful computer in the world, is to understand what they are used for.

The easiest answer to understand is that they are used to solving very complex and difficult problems, which is why they are usually found in a national laboratory or the national supercomputing center of countries such as China, Japan, or the United States.

The problems they are responsible for solving require too much time if they were done in a normal computer or laboratory. These problems are of great interest because they are related to science, health, economy, technology, and some areas of knowledge.

But having the computer will not be enough, for its operation to be as expected, you have to have the right software.

The most powerful computers in the world

The million-dollar question is to know the most powerful computer in the world but to arrive at an answer, it’s essential to understand that it isn’t that there is a single option that is the best.

Rather, different alternatives can offer excellent solutions when it comes to problem-solving, such as the relevance that you find yourself within a top 500 list.

But don’t panic, today we’ll only review the most important ones that are in the top positions for the millions of cores, for being equipped with the latest generation processors such as AMD EPYC processors and more.

Fugaku

Fugaku is on the list for being a more powerful computer than you’ll find. It’s one of the most powerful supercomputers developed by Fujitsu for the RIKEN Computer Science Center in Japan.

In particular, it started its development in 2014 and has just started operating in 2021, although parts of the computer already started its work in 2020.

In the top 500 fastest computers it’s in second place. And if it comes to the software, it consists of a lightweight multicore operating system.

Sunway TaihuLight

Another of the most powerful computers in the world is Sunway TaihuLight which is one of the 500 most powerful.

It’s the second large Chinese computer and a couple of years ago it was in the first place.

This supercomputer is located at the National Super Computer Center in Wuxi and is capable of delivering 93 petaflops. Having as a differentiating feature from other computers, not using acceleration chips.

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Sierra

The United States isn’t far behind in the list of what is the most powerful computer in the world, and it does so through the U.S. Department of Energy.

Sierra is located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the wonder of it is that over the last while it has managed to go from 71.6 petaflops to 96.6 petaflops. And it has 1,572,480 cores in its IBM Power 9 processors.

At this point, you know the best supercomputers in the world, but as we have mentioned, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t more, within the list of the first places we can mention:

• Summit: installed at Oak Ridge Laboratory, having a performance of 122.3 petaflops.
• Tianhe-2A: Chinese supercomputer located at the National Supern Computer Center in Guangzhou, with a performance of 61.4 petaflops.
• Piz Daint: European supercomputer located in Lugano, Switzerland, offering a computing power of 21.2 petaflops.

Now you have complete information about which is the most powerful computer in the world. You can see that there isn’t only one winner and that the positions of the top 500 are always moving, so there is no winner that will always be at the top of the list.