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Innovation

Supercomputers could be the size of a sugar cube

With 2 percent of the world's energy consumption used to power computers, shrinking the processors could go a long way in saving energy.
Written by Boonsri Dickinson, Contributing Editor

IBM predicts the next supercomputer will be the size of a sugar cube. Shrinking it will reduce the amount of energy the monster processors consume.

By stacking computer processors together with a unique cooling system, scientists were able to make the current system Aquasar the size of a refrigerator.

The Aquasar system can compute 1.1 billion operations per watt of power, which is 50 percent better than anything we currently have.

Having a more powerful processor has always been a gold standard, but having a more energy efficient one is emerging as an important factor too. Soon the cost of running the computer will be more than the actual processor, so if you want to shed costs it's better to make the data centers less energy intensive.

Your laptop uses the air generated from the fan to keep it cool. The Aquasar system wasn't built like that. It cools off with water.

Photo via Kurzweilai

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com

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