US wants to let supercomputer manage country’s nuclear potential

Today supercomputers are already prettyoften used for a variety of tasks. The computing power of modern supercomputers allows for complex mathematical calculations, help in creating new effective drugs, and even in the search for extraterrestrial life. However, all these areas of application practically do not raise questions, since, in fact, they are aimed at accelerating the receipt of a particular result. Only recently it became known that a group of US companies is developing a new (and very powerful) supercomputer that will manage all its nuclear potential. Should we start to fear?

Who is developing a supercomputer for managing nuclear weapons

According to the publication Engadget, for creatingthe supercomputer is responsible for the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA). The other day, these organizations announced that they had signed a contract with Cray to develop the first military supercomputer called "El Capitan" (as well as Apple's new OS version. Coincidence?). Cray is an American company, one of the main manufacturers of supercomputers in the United States since the 70s of the last century. In the list of Cray customers, the US Army, NASA and a number of research institutes both in the United States and abroad.

Why do I need a supercomputer

As stated in the official press release, workEl Capitan will have the primary function of controlling the country's nuclear stockpile, monitoring the safety and effectiveness of nuclear weapons storage, and developing the measures necessary to address potential threats to national security, such as nuclear non-proliferation and the fight against terrorism. Another important factor, according to the deputy director of the National Nuclear Safety Administration Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, is the ability to "be more flexible in terms of balance within the framework of the nuclear deterrence program."

El Capitan will have peak performancemore than 1.5 exaflops, which will allow about 1.5 quintillion (1,500,000,000,000,000,000) calculations per second. Would you like your desktop PC to have the same performance? Write about it in our chat in Telegram.

El Capitan will launch applications 50 timesfaster than the Sequoia system, which is now running at the Lawrence National Laboratory and 10 times faster than its Sierra system. The latter, by the way, is currently the second most powerful supercomputer in the world. It is expected that the work on creating a supercomputer will cost the US budget $ 600 million, and the supercomputer should "take up the post" in 2023.

This is interesting: How does artificial intelligence work.

Of course, generally expect a bleak future inthe style of the universe of the movie "Terminator" is not worth it, because the supercomputer will be used only for calculations and it does not even have the rudiments of artificial intelligence in the usual sense. On the other hand, El Capitan is still a technique. A technique can sometimes fail. And what will happen if a malfunction occurs in the computer, which is responsible for the entire nuclear potential of a huge country, one can only guess. Maybe you have speculations about this?