GOVERNMENT

On December 24, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology selected RIKEN to develop a new exascale supercomputer that is expected to keep Japan at the leading edge of computing science and technology.

The new supercomputer, which is scheduled to begin working in 2020, will supercompute on the "exaflops" scale, meaning that it will be able to perform in the range of a quintillion (a million trillion) floating point operations per second. Exascale supercomputing is expected to make possible high-resolution simulations, contributing to advances in a wide range of areas including drug discovery, weather forecasting, and astrophysics.

The new system will be about 100 times faster than the K computer, RIKEN's currently operating machine, which in 2011 was ranked as the fastest supercomputer in the world. RIKEN was selected for the new project based on its experience developing and managing the K computer.

"The RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) will now have two important missions: continuing to operate and manage the K computer for public use with the aim to generate useful research outcomes, and the successful development of the Exascale Supercomputer scheduled for completion by 2020. We ask for support from our associates around the world and in Japan as we launch our new project, which will be a great boon for science and technology, as well as industry," said Kimihiko Hirao, Director of AICS.

For more information, see the statement released on the website of the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS).