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Journalism of Courage
Japan is preparing to construct a groundbreaking supercomputer, projected to be 1,000 times faster than today’s most advanced machines.
Expected to cost more than $750 million and set to go live by 2030, this “zeta-class” supercomputer will mark a new era in computing power. Development of the machine, known as “Fugaku Next,” will begin in 2025, led by Japanese firms RIKEN and Fujitsu, according to Live Science.
The new system will be the successor to Japan’s Fugaku supercomputer, which was the fastest in the world until it was surpassed by the US’s Frontier in 2022.
Fugaku, capable of 0.44 exaFLOPS, is currently ranked fourth globally. In comparison, the upcoming zeta-class supercomputer could achieve speeds of 1 zetaFLOPS, allowing it to perform one sextillion calculations per second. By contrast, today’s most powerful machines have just crossed the exaFLOPS threshold, capable of one quintillion calculations per second.
As noted by Live Science, “Floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) is used to measure how fast computers can solve problems — where one floating-point operation is a single calculation.” Achieving the zetaFLOPS scale would be a milestone in AI development and scientific research.
The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) has allocated an initial ¥4.2 billion ($29 million) for the project, which could see total funding of up to ¥110 billion ($761 million). However, one of the key challenges in building this machine will be ensuring its energy efficiency.
Experts have warned that using current technologies, such a machine could require as much energy as 21 nuclear power plants, according to HPCwire, as reported by Live Science.
If all goes as planned, Japan’s Fugaku Next will be the world’s most powerful supercomputer, cementing Japan’s lead in scientific and AI-driven research.
