With such an impressive number of the largest companies in the world originating from Japan, it is no wonder that this nation is constantly thriving under the economic growth and continues to create technological advances year after year.
The year of 2017 seems to be no different for Japan, as we are witnessing an attempt to create the world’s fastest supercomputer, which will lead the nation’s economy into the future. Let’s take a look at what the latest technological innovation looks like.
Getting back to the top
With the need to dominate the upcoming global markets of robotics, renewable energy, and batteries, Japan is planning to de-crown the current economy leaders of the USA and China. There is a sense of ever-growing nostalgia for Japan’s past technological accomplishments, which have been thrown into oblivion with the rise of China’s technological advances.
As it stands, the fastest supercomputer built by the Chinese, Sunway Taihulight, is capable of making 93 quadrillion calculations per second, or 93 petaflops if you want to sound like a computer engineer. Japan aims to blow the record-breaking supercomputer out of the water with its 19.5 billion yen ($173 million) investment that will be capable of achieving the speed of 130 petaflops, or 130 quadrillion calculations per second, putting it back in the lead as the home of the world’s fastest supercomputer.
The mission is to build a computer that will guide Japan into the future and aid the development and innovation of medical diagnostics, driverless cars, and robotics. Additionally, in order to thrive in all the areas of renewable energy, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has encouraged all relevant parts of the private and the civil sector to take part and work more closely together in driving the nation to success.
Artificial intelligence and the future
In the efforts to accelerate the growth of technology which will be able to battle the ever-harder challenges and analyze bigger scores of data by mimicking the human brain’s neural pathways, Japan intends to employ the “deep learning” processes that the new supercomputer will be able to acquire using super-fast calculations. This will prove to be a breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence.
In the light of the most recent AI achievements made by the Google’s DeepMind AI Program, which has proven capable of beating a professional Go board game player Lee Sedol, Japan recognizes the possibilities and results their new supercomputer will be able to achieve while surpassing all its counterparts.
Japan intends to give corporations the ability to use the supercomputer for a fee. This will be a great solution as these corporations are currently outsourcing their data analysis to other companies like Microsoft and Google. While the supercomputer will be used to drive advances in all industries, such as weather forecast, pharmaceutical research, and industrial design, Japan also intends to use its power to lead the medical industry into a new era by analyzing medical records and creating new services and applications.
Additionally, as the concept of automation is rapidly taking over the world, the supercomputer will be tasked with improving the industry of unmanned driving, by allowing the companies to analyze large quantities of traffic information.
Currently, the new supercomputer bears the name of AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure or ABCI for short.
Technology is the way of the future, and the Japanese nation has always been aware of its importance for the global economy and the possibilities that technology brings to national advances as well as growth on the global level. With the new supercomputer, Japan will not only lead its nation to the future but the world, as well.
