By Dan Satherley
Seven of the world's fastest computers are in New Zealand, according to a new list of the worlds fastest 500.
Six of them are owned by Weta Digital, the Peter Jackson-led film effects unit responsible for the visual wonders in films like District 9, King Kong and of course, the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The seventh belongs to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.
The most powerful computer in the world is in the US - a Jaguar Cray XT5-HE, used to simulate nuclear explosions. It runs at a speed of almost 1.8 petaflops – over one quadrillion calculations per second. In comparison, a simple handheld computer runs at about 10.
Most of the computers in the top 500 are manufactured by Hewlett Packard and IBM. Weta's fastest computer is a Hewlett Packard Cluster Platform 3000BL.
3 News
source: newshub archive
