Frontier's Fastest Computer

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Justin Witt is program director for the Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Lab. The facility houses some of the fastest and most powerful supercomputers in the world. He says each cabinet weighs about as much as two F-150 pickups. "The engineering that went into the room itself is pretty astounding"

Last May, the Oak Ridge National Lab, run by the US Department of Energy, unveiled Frontier–the world's fastest supercomputer. It’s capable of performing a quintillion calculations per second, breaking what's called the exascale barrier.

The system requires its own power plant, 6,000 gallons of water to keep it cool, and a highly trained staff to operate. So what can it do? And who gets to use it?

We set out for Knoxville, Tennessee to try to wrap our brains around Frontier’s limitless potential.

See more about Frontier here: It Takes 6,000 Gallons of Water to Cool the World’s Fastest Supercomputer

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