A Supercomputer on Your Wrist

smartwatchcray-2-computer-system

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the specs and quirks of our current technology that we forget how far we have come.

To put it in perspective, consider a smartwatch. There are many ways to measure computer performance – CPU speed, amount of ram, amount of storage memory, network speed, etc. A common way to compare basic performance, though, is by FLOPS, or floating operations per second.

A smartwatch can do somewhere in the range of 3 to 9 gigaflops. To put that in perspective, the Cray-2 supercomputer in 1985 could do about 1.9 gigaflops. You could buy one then for about $17,000,000. It used 200 kilowatts of power (that’s several times the power a typical home electrical system provides), occupied 16 square feet of floor space (if you ignore its separate cooling system), and weighed 5500 pounds. (A pdf brochure with the details is here.) I’m sure no one then thought we would ever strap something like that on our wrists, let alone order one online and have it arrive a couple days later.

Makes one wonder what the next few decades will bring.

 

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