Japan to Craft Fastest Supercomputer Embraced with Artificial Intelligence

From windmills powered by hurricanes to hotels run entirely by robots, Japan has been the frontrunner in the realm of technology. Another turf dominated by the Japanese until recently was intelligence and computing. Although the Chinese are the current leaders, followed by the USA, Japan now plans to repaint the picture of control as it pitches to build the most efficient and the fastest supercomputer yet.

Compared to Sunway TairuLight of China, which is capable of 93 petaflops ( the measure of Supercomputer’s processing capacity - quadrillion floating point calculations per second), the Japanese supercomputer will process at 130 petaflops and is likely to cost US $173 million. Likely to be dubbed with a weighty title - Artificial Intelligence Bridging Cloud or AIBC Infrastructure – the Japanese supercomputer may see the light of the day by the end of 2017. The supercomputer’s genesis will take effect in the Kashiwa campus of the University of Tokyo and it will, like most supercomputers, run an operating system based on Linux.

Japan's intuitive HRP 43 robot

The Fujitsu Oakforest-PACS is currently the fastest in Japan with a processing speed of 13.55 petaflops - one-tenth of AIBC’s anticipated speed. Japan has been home to many of the world’s most intelligent robots, and the research on Artificial Intelligence enjoys spotlight in this endeavour, as researchers bid to use deep learning techniques to empower machines achieve the rationale and abstract-thinking of human beings.  Prime Minister Abe added that these will enable extensive research in the fields of Medical Technology, cognitive robotic equipment and self-driven cars.

Driverless car

PM Abe plans to monetize this prospect by renting AIBC supercomputer to Japanese corporations for use instead of depending on service from non-Japanese entities, reported ARS Technica. Beside financial assurance, the bigger challenge lies ahead as the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan intends to run this computer at less than 3 megawatts of electric power and as per plan, will have liquid cooling technology to keep heat waves away. In comparison to the Chinese TairuLight which uses 15 megawatts of power, the AIBC could be challenging revolution.

While the bids for the projects are already afloat, Japan will face severe competition from China in the race to build the fastest supercomputer. This is mainly because of China’s thriving ability to be the leader of innovation technology, as it is confident of developing a faster-than-AIBC supercomputer before Japan lands itself with the honour.