The world is currently on the verge of ExaFLOP supercomputers. The USA just revealed a 200 petaFLOP supercomputer. China will soon complete three supercomputers that will be close to ExaFLOP and one or more could reach ExaFLOP performance.
Computer performance
Name Unit Value kiloFLOPS kFLOPS 103 megaFLOPS MFLOPS 106 gigaFLOPS GFLOPS 109 teraFLOPS TFLOPS 1012 petaFLOPS PFLOPS 1015 exaFLOPS EFLOPS 1018 zettaFLOPS ZFLOPS 1021 yottaFLOPS YFLOPS 1024 brontoFLOPS BFLOPS 1027 GEOFLOPS GeFLOPS 1030
Many see quantum computing, neuromorphic computing, and optical computing as technologies which could disrupt high-performance computing.
Niobium Josephson Junction-based technologies cooled to four Kelvins can operate beyond 100 and 200 GHz and has slowly evolved over two or more decades. Quantum annealing is performed at 40 milli-Kelvins or lower. The four Kelvin requirement is easy in comparison. However, latencies measured in cycles grow proportionally with clock rate and superconducting supercomputing must take a very distinct form from typical von Neumann cores. Sterling is not putting forward a controversial position.
Possible alternative non-von Neumann architectures could address the latency challenge. Cellular automata and data flow could be used, but problems will need to be overcome. The post-exascale era has a lot of possibilities.
There was a Cordis research project on non-von Neumann architectures. Reconfigurable non-von-Neumann Accelerators.
Nextbigfuture believes eventual nanocomputing will deliver energy efficient computers beyond YottaFLOPS
At the same ten megawatt power level as some supercomputers, molecular nanocomputer supercomputers could achieve YottaFlop, BrontoFlops or even GeoFlop compute levels.
Ralph Merkle, Robert Freitas and others have a theoretical design for a molecular mechanical computer that would be 100 billion times more energy efficient than the most energy efficient conventional green supercomputer. Removing the need for gears, clutches, switches, springs makes the design easier to build.
Existing designs for mechanical computing can be vastly improved upon in terms of the number of parts required to implement a complete computational system. Only two types of parts are required: Links, and rotary joints. Links are simply stiff, beam-like structures. Rotary joints are joints that allow rotational movement in a single plane
A molecular model of a diamond-based lock, ¾ view
So a technological brute force acceleration looks likely in the 15 to 35 year timeframe. We will at least have some improvements on deep learning and reinforcement learning. Substantial trillion+ qubit general purpose quantum computers and all optical computers will also likely be available.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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