Spoiler: It's nowhere near 9,000,000mAh!
In November 2014, the top six supercomputers all run Linux, but that's about the only thing they have in common.
The world's third-fastest computer, Sequoia, is an IBM Blue Gene design. For a while, IBM ruled supercomputers with this architecture, but now, while close to the top, it's not number one. IBM has plans to take the number one spot back by 2017.
In the meantime, Sequoia works at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. There, its 1.6GHz Power BQC 16C processors deliver 17.17 petaflops to nuclear explosion simulations. Does that bother you? Look at it this way, would you rather have real nuclear tests or simulated ones? I'll take the ones in a supercomputer any time!
Caption by: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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