Petaflop

Super fast:

Scientists unveiled the world's fastest supercomputer on Monday, a $100 million machine that for the first time has performed 1,000 trillion calculations per second in a sustained exercise.

The interconnecting system occupies 6,000 square feet with 57 miles of fiber optics and weighs 500,000 pounds. Although made from commercial parts, the computer consists of 6,948 dual-core computer chips and 12,960 cell engines, and it has 80 terabytes of memory.

The cost: $100 million.

And it's already obsolete. Never build a new box on the bleeding edge.

What's it for? Nuclear weapons research and stockpile tracking. Which fact naturally prodded CNN to publish this inanity:

[The] computer also could have a wide range of other applications in civilian engineering, medicine and science, from developing biofuels and designing more fuel efficient cars...

Yes, it will lower gas prices! And it will design gorgeous purple unicorns that run around the world at the speed of sound and burn up all the excess carbon dioxide and impale global warming skeptics and Republicans on their horns!

CNN. Chump News Network. For those too stupid to figure out how to turn off the television.