The First ‘Zeta-Class’ Supercomputer Will Revolutionize Science in Just 6 Years

 

 Once online in 2030, it will make modern speeds feel like dial-up

 

• Japan is officially starting work on the world’s first ‘zeta-class’ supercomputer.
• When completed, the machine should run at least a full 1,000 times faster than the world’s current fastest supercomputer.
• The computer is expected to go online in 2030 and will cost the Japanese government an estimated $775 million.

 Supercomputers have unequivocally changed our world. They’ve solved complex math problems, simulated massive physical systems, enabled breakthroughs in biology and medicine—name a scientific field, and it’s probably been impacted by supercomputing.

And these massive bastions of computing power have only gotten better over time. The faster a supercomputer can work through calculations and analyses, the more uniquely helpful it can be to the people using it as a research tool. The speeds of computers are measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS), and the fastest supercomputers currently functioning boast speeds in the realm of exaFLOPS—one quintillion (10^17) calculations per second.

Now, Japan is looking to challenge that record by building the world’s first-ever ‘zeta-class’ supercomputer. Known as Fugaku Next, the revolutionary machine should eventually be capable of speeds in the realm of zetaFLOPS—a full 1,000 time faster than exaFLOPS.

The announcement comes from Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), which—according to a translated article from Japanese news site Nikkei—is expecting to allocate approximately ¥110 billion (approximately $775 million) to the project over the course of its development, with about ¥4.2 billion ($29 million) of that money going to the first year of development. If all goes well, the supercomputer is expected to go online in 2030.

The biggest goal for the project is to keep Japan on level with the rest of the world when it comes to AI computational power, and ideally, MEXT would like for it to be completed largely with Japanese parts. The development will be headed by prominent Japanese research institution RIKEN, and supplemented—according to Nikkei—by either Japanese company Fujitsu (which jointly developed Fugaku Next’s predecessor, Fugaku), or one of three American companies: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Nvidia, and Intel.

“Other countries are ahead in supercomputer technology for AI,” Satoshi Matsuoka, director of the RIKEN Center for Computational Science, told Nikkei. “We would like to incorporate their knowledge and evolve Japan's core technologies into technologies that can win in the international market.”

The plan is ambitious, but if it succeeds, it will make Japan the undisputed king of supercomputers—at least, while the rest of the world inevitably starts playing catch-up. If it works as advertised when completed, this machine (in combination with current and to-be-developed AI technology) could usher in breakthroughs that have so far been impossible.

The rest of the world will just have to wait and see what fascinating new technologies are about to emerge.

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