The top 10 supercomputers ever built.

Every year that goes, computers get more powerful - just over forty-four years, NASA sent the Apollo 11 to the moon with a less powerful computer than the phone that you carry in your pocket today. The main module of the machine used had, for example, 2048 MHz - more or less the same as used in scientific calculators nowadays.

By this light, your phone would be a super computer, but only compared to the computers used in the late 60. The machines listed here are real monsters of computing, able to process hundreds and even thousands of times faster the same amount of data a home computer is capable of.

Ready? Come on!



10 - SuperMUC

Housed in Leibniz, near Munich, Germany, the SuperMUC is the successor to HLRB II, developed into the center of Super Computer Leibniz. Even though less powerful machine on our list, your settings are absurd: 288 Terabytes of RAM, 12 petabytes (thousands Teras) HD and stunning 2.9 petaFLOPS per second.


09 - Vulcan

Using System Blue Gene, an IBM project to create super computers capable of achieving petaFLOPS and reduced energy expenditure, the Vulcan is ninth on our list for a reason. Located in the USA, Lawrence National Laboratory (LLNL), the computer has twenty and four shelves and a peak of 5 petaFLOPS.


08 - JUQUEEN

Just as the Vulcan, the JUQUEEN uses up the Blue Gene system. Living in Germany, it is officially the most powerful computer in all of Europe by ranking 2013 and used by the Jülich Research Center. Among its specifications, we find numbers like 458.752 cores and 5.8 petaFLOPS speed. It also has 458 terabytes of RAM.


07 - Stampede

Located in Advanced Computer Center of Texas, the Stampede is new. He went into production on January 7, 2013, has 462.462 processor cores, 192 terabytes of RAM and amazing 8.5 petaFLOPS maximum speed.


06 - Piz Daint

Named after one of the mountains of the Swiss Alps, it is easy to conclude that this super machine is owned by the Swiss Center for Super Computing. Used for research - primarily to perform simulations - Piz Daint 115.984 cores and has a peak of 7.7 petaFLOPS capacity per second.


05 - Mira IBM

Fifth-placed on our list is another of the computers that run through the Blue Gene, IBM. The Mira is a resident of Argonne National Library, in the United States, and its job is to conduct a series of scientific processes of Climatology, Material Science, Computational Chemistry, among others. He has 786.432 cores and a maximum capacity of 10 petaFLOPS. In a press release, IBM said that "if every man, woman and child in the United States make a calculation per second, it would take them almost a year to do the same number of operations that Mira is in a second."


04 - K Computer

The K Computer, resident of Japan in Computational Science Institute of Advanced Riken, was for nearly a year considered the most powerful computer in the world, losing the post to the Sequoia. OK it was also the first computer to surpass the mark of 10 petaFLOPS per second. Currently, it has over 80,000 2GHz processors, totaling 705.024 cores and a top speed of 11.2 petaFLOPS.


03 - Sequoia

The Sequoia was the first computer to achieve constant speed of 10 petaFLOPS (Photo: Playback / NNSA)


Third-placed list of the Sequoia shows why deserves the bronze medal. The Sequoia was the first to be able to maintain a speed above 10 petaFLOPS steadily. The machine is in California, and spends its 1.5 million core applications in astronomy, the human genome and predicting climate changes.


02 - Titan

The Titan is the type of device that justifies its name. Developed in 2012 with an initial budget of $ 60milhões, this monster computer is used for scientific research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States. Its specifications are very detailed and even more striking: nearly 700 terabytes of RAM, HD 40 Petabytes, 560.40 cores and a constant flow of 17.5 petaFLOPS of information per second, with a peak of 27.


01 - Tianhe-2 (MilkyWay 2)

If the Titan can be called a monster, missing adjectives to adequately describe the Tianhe-2, which ranks first in the list of Super Computers very, very slack. Its capacity is nearly two times higher than the Titan. This machine, developed by the Chinese as part of a technological development program - the 863 High Technology Program - was developed by a team of thirteen hundred scientists and cost 390 million dollars.

According to NUDT - the National University of Technology Defensive China - the Tianhe will be used for simulation, analysis and government security applications in the country. And it's little, he does not have to offer: 3,12milhões cores, up to 54.9 petaFLOPS per second, 1.3 Petabytes of RAM and HD 12.4 Petabytes.