IBM, DOE unveil 'world's fastest' AI supercomputer

Called Summit, the supercomputer has a peak performance of 200,000 trillion calculations per second (or 200 petaflops), and is eight times more powerful than the lab's previous top-ranked system, Titan. For some scientific applications, says ORNL, Summit will be capable of more than three billion billion mixed-precision calculations per second, providing unprecedented computing power for research in energy, advanced materials, artificial intelligence (AI), and other domains, enabling scientific discoveries that were previously impractical or impossible. "Today's launch of the Summit supercomputer demonstrates the strength of American leadership in scientific innovation and technology development," said Secretary of Energy Rick Perry on the announcement. "It's going to have a profound impact in energy research, scientific discovery, economic competitiveness and national security." "I am truly excited by the potential of Summit, as it moves the nation one step closer to the goal of delivering an exascale supercomputing system by 2021." said Perry.