The Japanese supercomputer Fugaku, recognized as the fastest in the world, began operating at full capacity this Tuesday, according to its creators, who hope that the computer will allow progress in the investigation of the coronavirus.
Fugaku has been developed jointly by the Riken state scientific institute and the Japanese technology company Fujitsu, and was already partially activated last April to begin searching for potential drugs to treat Covid-19.
Fugaku has been jointly developed by the Riken state scientific institute and the Japanese technology company Fujitsu
From now on, the supercomputer will use the full capacity of its 415.5 petaflops, which allow it to complete 442,000 billion operations per second, according to the person in charge of the project, Hiroshi Matsumoto, in a ceremony held today in Kobe (western Japan), where the machine is located.
“I hope that Fugaku will be able to go where its predecessor K could not, including applications of artificial intelligence and data analysis,” said Matsumoto in reference to the supercomputer that Fugaku replaces, in an intervention reported by local media.
The computer is expected to be used in about a hundred projects that will also include other fields such as climate change.
Fugaku was recognized as the fastest computer in the world last June by unseating the world leader until then, Summit, installed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee (United States) by IBM, according to the bi-annual TOP500 ranking.
The Japanese machine retained its top spot in another TOP500 ranking published last November. Named after Mount Fuji, Fugaku also ranked first in three other categories that measure performance in computational methods for industrial use, artificial intelligence applications, and big data analytics.
