Japan reveals plans to create the world's fastest-known supercomputer in the desire to provide the country's manufacturers with a platform for research that could aid them in developing and improving driverless cars, robotics and medical diagnostics. A budget breakdown says that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will allot 19.5 billion yen ($173 million) on the formerly unreported project as part of a government policy to make Japan have a comeback in the world of technology. It is known that the country had difficulties in keeping up with competitors from South Korea and China, two of the world's current home for best-performing machine.
According to Reuters, Japan's engineers will be assigned with building a machine that can make 130 quadrillion calculations per second - or 130 petaflops in scientific parlance - as early as next year. Given the aforementioned speed makes Japan's computer to be ahead of China's Sunway Taihulight that is capable of 93 petaflops and responsible for weather forecasting, pharmaceutical research, industrial design, among other things. Satoshi Sekiguchi, director general at japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said that "there's nothing out there as fast" as the supercomputer.
The decision for this new project comes after a time of growing nostalgia for the peak of Japan's technological prowess, which has decreased since China became the world's second-biggest economy. As a result, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for companies, bureaucrats and the political class to be involved so Japan can win in robotics, batteries, renewable energy and other new and growing markets.
The Prime Minister also expressed that the computer should advance "deep learning" technology that works off algorithms which imitate the human brain's neural pathways, said by Sky News. The upcoming new supercomputer could help in medical records to create new services and applications. Moreover, it has obtained the name ABCI which means Al Bridging Cloud Infrastructure, and the bidding for the project will end on December 8.
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