ARM’s
newsroom site says nothing about it – yet. However, according to PC World,
ARM’s first supercomputer chip will find its way into a machine based in Japan.
The Post-K computer, to be developed by Fujitsu, and should be 50 – 100 times
faster than its predecessor, the K Computer.
At
peak performance, the K Computer delivers 10.5 petaflops (one quadrillion
floating point operations per second (FLOPS). PC World says the new processor
will be based on the 64-bit ARM-v8A architecture. It will have vector
processing extensions called Scalabe Vector Extension.
ARM
has made a name for itself creating mobile chips, and with its products being
featured in Apple’s iPhone, it is a pretty powerful company. However, it was
acquired by Japanese company Softbank, for $32 billion (£24.5bn). With this
cash, ARM will be looking to strengthen its position in both servers and IoT
(internet of things) industries.
What
we should expect in the near(er) future is for these supercomputers to reach
one exaflop. All hotshots (Intel, Nvidia, IBM), have been pushing to reach that
goal some time now. Some media are also saying that ARM’s chips could be a more
power-efficient alternative, knowing that large-scale supercomputers draw
megawatts of power.
