# Japanese computer fastest in world! 5 X faster than nearest US competitor! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 21, 2002, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767 "2002-04-21T04:00:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/1 "2002-04-21T04:00:22Z")
Oh no! We’ve got a gigaflops gap! What are we gonna do? As an American I feel so … so 386ish. We’ve got to get back to the point that we’ve got the top 'flops or… well we’d be second best and that isn’t an option little mister, so you ladies at IBM better begin burning the midnight oil! [Japanese supercomputer takes world’s fastest title from US](http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_571790.html?menu=news.latestheadlines) > [@](#): > > A new Japanese supercomputer has taken the title of world’s fastest away from the US. The NEC Earth Simulator processes data five times faster than its closest competitor. It works at a speed of 35,600 gigaflops compared to its closest rival, IBM’s ASCI White, which runs at a speed of 7,226 gigaflops. > > The NEC Earth Simulator is as large as four tennis courts and creates a “virtual planet Earth” to predict climate patterns. > > Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer science professor, leads the group of researchers that tracks the world’s 500 speediest computers. > > “This machine is more powerful than the 20 fastest computers in the US,” Mr Dongarra said. “It’s more powerful than all of the Department of Energy and Department of Defence computers together.” ---
**Author:** ![Blackclaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@Blackclaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackclaw)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/2 "2002-04-21T04:48:20Z")
The US Defense department may not have acknowledged a few of the computers it owns… ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/3 "2002-04-21T05:41:54Z")
Like that iMac sitting in the ‘Top Secret’ room. ---
**Author:** ![Monster104](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Monster104](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monster104)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/4 "2002-04-21T06:30:43Z")
Feh. We got guns. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/5 "2002-04-21T06:44:11Z")
But can I play _games_ with it? ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/6 "2002-04-21T06:55:42Z")
The IRS is said missing over 2300 computers. Maybe they are not missing after all, but being threaded together into a massive no-mistake auditing machine that can do about 200000 audits at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/7 "2002-04-21T09:33:01Z")
This caught my eye… > [@](#): > > The NEC Earth Simulator is as large as four tennis courts Feh. We had computers that size decades ago. If anything, Japan is fifty years behind us. They might as well be using vacuum tubes. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/8 "2002-04-21T11:25:48Z")
[Here](http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene/) is the official press release, with pictures. By the way, IBM is designing the [Blue Gene](http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene/) which will be 6 times faster than the new NEC computer. The Blue Gene seems to be a more interesting approach - instead of using thousands of very fast processors, it uses a million little CPUs. I mean little - a single chip contains several CPUs, if I read that correctly. ---
**Author:** ![MarkyDeSade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@MarkyDeSade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarkyDeSade)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/9 "2002-04-21T16:32:52Z")
Yeah, well, **Jack Dongarra** doesn’t sound very Japanese to me… ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Cynical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee59a6/32.png) [@Mr.Cynical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Cynical)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/10 "2002-04-21T16:34:38Z")
Well, Dongarra is Japanese for Dongalla, so he must be Italian. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/11 "2002-04-21T16:49:12Z")
Is it greater computer than the Milliard Gargantubrain? or a greater analyst than the Googleplex Star Thinker? or a more fiendish disputant than then the Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler? thanks and apologies to Douglas Adams ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-computer-fastest-in-world-5-x-faster-than-nearest-us-competitor/104767/12 "2002-04-21T17:22:39Z")
I’m staggered that it’s not just the fastest, but **5 times** faster than the closest competitor. Amazing! **scr4** , I think you made mistake on your first link that was meant to be press release for the Japanese computer, it’s also a link to IBM’s Blue Gene.