How much do supercomputers cost and where can you get some? If this is the question you have in mind, then I have the right answer to your question here.
If you want a computer that can handle and process a staggering amount of data within the shortest time possible, then you should be looking at a supercomputer. This type of computer is larger, faster and better than all other types of computers.
What is the supercomputer?
A supercomputer as the name suggests is a computer that has a larger size and higher processing power compared to all the other types of computers. The processing power for this type of computer is so high that it is measured in Floating-point operations per second (FLOPS)
Supercomputers are huge and sometimes can not even fit in 4,000 square feet of space. The systems come in racks and are linked together with network cables.
Most of these computers are used in solving complex processes including oil and gas exploration, weather forecasting, quantum mechanics, etc.
Some of the recent top-performing supercomputers are as follows.
- Frontier
Is a United States-made supercomputer that can hit over 1,600 exaFLOPS (Rpeak). It runs HPE Cray OS and it is regarded as the fastest supercomputer in the world currently.
- Fugaku
This is a Japan-made supercomputer that was the world’s fastest before it was overthrown by the Frontier. Fugaku can hit up 537.21 PFlops and it runs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) OS.
There are so many supercomputers in the world right now than many years ago.
How Much Do Supercomputers Cost?
Supercomputers are the most expensive computers in the world. They do not just cost so much but they also demand a lot more to maintain. Let us look at some of the supercomputers and how much they cost.
- Frontier
The Frontier which is the fastest computer in the world is estimated to cost about $600 million. It also demands 150-500 MW of power to run. It occupies 7,300 Square Feet of space.
- Fugaku
The second fastest supercomputer is estimated to have cost a total of $1 billion for the programme for which it was built. It is believed that the Fugaku weighs over 340 tons and occupies up to 5,600 Square Feet of space.
This is how much supercomputers cost. If you asked; “How much do supercomputers cost? Then you should probably get your answer by now.
These systems are built from scratch to serve a specific purpose and are not to be sold so they are not priced. You can only estimate how much it took to build them.