Thu Sep 12 01:38:48 UTC 2024: ## Japan to Build Zettaflop Supercomputer by 2030
**Tokyo, Japan** – Japan plans to build a Zettaflop supercomputer, named “Fugaku Next,” by 2030, with an estimated budget of $761 million. This ambitious project will be a joint effort by RIKEN and Fujitsu, the same companies responsible for the current Fugaku supercomputer.
Fugaku Next will boast impressive computational power, achieving peak performance of several hundred TFLOPS for double-precision computations, around 50 PFLOPS for half-precision AI calculations, and 100 PFLOPS for 8-bit AI calculations. The supercomputer will also have a memory bandwidth reaching several hundred TB/s.
“This new supercomputer will be a game-changer,” says Brian Wang, a futurist and science blogger. “A Zettaflop machine can perform one sextillion calculations per second, significantly surpassing today’s most powerful supercomputers which are just breaking the exaFLOPS barrier.”
While the project has a significant budget, some question its timeline. The supercomputer is scheduled for completion in 2030, which is five years away. In contrast, xAI managed to build their AI cluster in just four months.
“The risk is that this computer will be obsolete by the time it’s online,” notes Wang.
The project’s specific applications remain unclear. However, potential uses could include advancements in artificial intelligence, climate modeling, and medical research.
“The Japanese government has allocated ¥4.2 billion ($29 million) for the first year of the project, and could allocate up to ¥110 billion ($761 million) throughout the project,” says a spokesperson from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).
The development of Fugaku Next signifies Japan’s continued commitment to pushing the boundaries of computational power and its potential impact on various scientific fields.
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