The K computer
Supercomputers have become indispensable for research and development in many fields of science and engineering, where high-order computational simulations can be pivotal in unearthing leads to the next scientific breakthroughs.
RIKEN’s award-winning supercomputer, the K computer, was officially made available for use by researchers in September 2012. Developed in partnership with the electronics firm Fujitsu since 2006, the K computer is one of the three most powerful computer systems in the world.
The K computer boasts a computational power of 10 petaflops, or 10 quadrillion operations per second.
The supercomputer’s exceptional simulation precision and computational speed will benefit research in a broad range of fields that use computational science as the K computer was designed to meet the requirements of a wide range of fields.
The K computer was developed as a core system of the innovative High Performance Computing Infrastructure (HPCI) being pursued by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It is located at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe.