K computer

The K computer – named for the Japanese word/numeral "kei" (京), meaning 10 quadrillion (1016) – was a supercomputer manufactured by Fujitsu, installed at the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science campus in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. The K computer was based on a distributed memory architecture with over 80,000 compute nodes. It was used for a variety of applications, including climate research, disaster prevention and medical research. The K computer's operating system was based on the Linux kernel, with additional drivers designed to make use of the computer's hardware. In June 2011, TOP500 ranked K the world's fastest supercomputer, with a computation speed of over 8 petaflops, and in November 2011, K became the first computer to top 10 petaflops. It had originally been slated for completion in June 2012. In June 2012, K was superseded as the world's fastest supercomputer by the American IBM Sequoia. As of November 2018, the K computer held third place for the HPCG benchmark. It held the first place until June 2018, when it was superseded by Summit and Sierra. The K supercomputer was decommissioned on 30 August 2019. In Japan, the K computer was succeeded by the Fugaku supercomputer, in 2020, which took the top spot on the June 2020 TOP500 list, at that time nearly three times faster than second most powerful supercomputer.