President Obama Orders US Researchers To Build World's Fastest Supercomputer

According to an executive order announced on July 29, President Barack Obama has called on U.S. scientists to develop world's fastest supercomputer. The order is a part of an initiative called the National Strategic Computing Initiative, or NSCI.

According to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, NSCI is “designed to advance core technologies to solve difficult computational problems and foster increased use of the new capabilities in the public and private sectors.”

The initiative is an attempt to make sure that the United States remains a leader in the field of high-performance computing. In addition, it aims at development of core competencies and technology that will help solve modern-day computational problems and further strengthen the public and private sectors with the help of the new capabilities.

“ Over the past 60 years, the United States has been a leader in the development and deployment of cutting-edge computing systems,” states the office. “The purpose of the NSCI is to ensure the United States continues leading in this field over the coming decades.”

One of the goals of the NSCI is to build the world's fastest supercomputer within the next decade. The computer thus developed is expected to work at one billion billion calculations per second, or one exaflop. According to the official statement released by the office, such a computer will help make accurate predictions about galaxies and aircraft in flight.

In addition, a person will be able to detect the presence of cancer from the X-ray images and study the human brain using the supercomputer planned to be developed soon. Seeing the technology that the supercomputer is expected to possess, it is unclear how long will the researchers take to develop it.

The initiatives under the NSCI will be led by the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. The Washington Post reports that China currently leads the market of supercomputing; however, America is one of the veteran tech giants with companies like IBM and Google.