October 18 was Exascale Day.
1018 flops is 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 flops = 1 ExaFlop.
OR a billion billion floating point operations per second.
Do you see why Exascale Day is October 18? (Hint: write the date as it’s expressed in the US: 10/18).
To put this number in perspective, it’s equivalent to the compute power of about 5 million of the latest Apple MacBookAir laptops.
1018 is approximately the number of grains of sand on 1 thousand average beaches.
Or, for the physics graduate, it’s approximately the number of bubbles in 10 million beers.
Interestingly, it is estimated that the human brain operates at roughly an ExaFlop, so with the incredible advancements in AI and machine learning we should see some really mind-blowing technology being developed over the next decade.
Seriously, the milestone of an ExaFlop is expected to be achieved in the next few years. DUG is currently planning our own ExaScale facility to help industry and researchers reach the next era of scientific endeavour.
What were we encouraged to do on #NationalExascaleDay? Quite simply we were told to celebrate the geeks, gurus, and geniuses who keep asking the big questions and are changing the world. And to start with: hug a scientist!
