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

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @11:00AM from the greased-lightning dept.

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."

1 of 223 comments (clear)

Re:And the NSA? by quenda · 2015-07-29 14:34 · Score: 1, Troll

violate the spirit?

I just mean it enables the US to develop new weapons, e.g. bunker busters, without live testing. Yes, the simulations are that good. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, especially as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was never ratified. But the NPT is a problem.