1.2 Hardware and Software
Computers can perform calculations and make logical decisions phenomenally faster than human beings can. Many of today’s personal computers can perform billions of calculations in one second—more than a human can perform in a lifetime. Supercomputers are already performing thousands of trillions (quadrillions) of instructions per second! IBM has developed the IBM Summit supercomputer, which can perform over 122 quadrillion calculations per second (122 petaflops)!2 To put that in perspective, the IBM Summit supercomputer can perform in one second almost 16 million calculations for every person on the planet!3 And supercomputing upper limits are growing quickly.
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