Obama's New Executive Order Says the US Must Build an Exascale Supercomputer

Jason Koebler writes: President Obama has signed an executive order authorizing a new supercomputing research initiative with the goal of creating the fastest supercomputers ever devised. The National Strategic Computing Initiative, or NSCI, will attempt to build the first ever exascale computer, 30 times faster than today's fastest supercomputer. Motherboard reports: "The initiative will primarily be a partnership between the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and National Science Foundation, which will be designing supercomputers primarily for use by NASA, the FBI, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Homeland Security, and NOAA. Each of those agencies will be allowed to provide input during the early stages of the development of these new computers."

Comments

Re:And the NSA?

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It is not the NSA driving this, but the Department of Energy.
The current fastest supercomputer in the US is at Oak Ridge - the nuclear weapons labs since the Manhattan Project.
It enables the US to violate the spirit, but not the letter, of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
And now China has a bigger computer, so of course we need more supercomputers, and more Mine Shafts.