Over so many million years there was only one computer which used to have a exascale system!
Now there are four!
Do you know El Capitan? Well, it is not the name of the pirate king in POTC!
But we will come to that!
So an exascale system is a supercomputer capable of performing at least
(one quintillion) IEEE 754 double-precision floating-point operations per second (1 exa FLOPS). These systems, which represent a 1000x leap over previous pentascale systems, are designed to tackle extreme-scale scientific simulations, AI, and complex data modeling!
For ages there was only one ‘computer’ which was a ‘natural’ exascale system!
The same system which is getting heated up while reading this blog!
The Human brain!
Apparently if you compare the human brain were to a computer, it would be an ultra-efficient, highly parallel neuromorphic supercomputer!
It would have the processing Power of around 1 Exaflop (1,000,000,000,000,000,000, which is commonly known as one quintillion! operations per second)
There would be 86–100 billion neurons acting as individual, parallel processing units.
The Memory/Storage would be around 1–2.5 petabytes with some estimates suggesting up to 100 terabytes to 100 trillion data points based on synaptic connections!
The best part though would be its energy consumption!
It would only consume around 12–20 Watts (roughly the energy of a dim light bulb!)
The brain’s primary strength is its ability to handle immense, complex data tasks in parallel, rather than the raw sequential calculation speed of modern digital computers!
Then what or who is El Capitan!?
Well we thought that there cannot be any system which could be the exascale system! Now we have three!
Frontier, operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US, was the world’s first true exascale supercomputer, becoming operational in 2022. Built by HPE, it achieved speeds over 1 exaflop (1 quintillion calculations/second!)
Now it is in number three with El Capitan right there on the top for now!
So El Capitan is the world’s fastest and most powerful supercomputer as of late 2024/early 2025, developed by HPE for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (.gov).
It is like mentioned above an exascale machine, exceeding 2 exaflops of performance, designed primarily for U.S. nuclear stockpile stewardship, simulations, and advanced research!
Achieves over 2.79 quintillion calculations per second (2.79 exaflops), making it the top-ranked system on the TOP500 list.
It primarily supports the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for non-explosive, simulated nuclear weapons testing and besides defense, it will be used for climate modeling, artificial intelligence, and genomics research.
El Capitan represents a major, 20-fold increase in capability over its predecessor, Sierra, and is crucial for national security, handling complex modeling and simulation tasks!
Finally you have a computer or computers which are at least theoretically faster than the human brain! But the amount of resource and research it takes to make one is many times more! Which is what makes the brain a special and unique super computer! Unfortunately you cannot UPDATE its operating systems or remove the bugs!
Then again one with a resourceful mind and brain also is Ashok Amritraj!
Now take care of one of the fastest computers in the world!
Shubh ratri!
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