Science and Technology Desk: About a month ago. Last August end. Suddenly a country announced plans to build a computer that now has the entire computer world thinking about it. It is a computer that no one has made before. And if you can make it today's fastest computer will become a toy!

No one can dare to ignore or dismiss the name of the country which is sitting with such a declaration. The name of the country is Japan. On August 28, the country's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Science and Technology announced in an announcement that they are going to start building new 'Zeta-class' supercomputers from next year. The dream of making this supercomputer has been seen by everyone, but no one has been able to make it a reality. It is said that this supercomputer will work at zettaflops speed. When fully operational, this supercomputer will be able to operate 1,000 times faster than today's fastest supercomputers. But understand!

Japan says it will be able to build this new 'Zeta-class' supercomputer by 2030. This supercomputer can cost about 750 million dollars to build. If it can build Zeta-class supercomputers, Japan will go a long way in the race to create future artificial intelligence-focused technological capabilities. It could be so much that it turned out that there is no one near Japan.

What is a Zeta-Class Supercomputer?
To understand this, one must first know about floating-point operations per second or FLOPS. Just as we abbreviate binary digits as bits, they can also be called flops for ease of pronunciation. It determines how powerful the computer actually is. That is, the measure of computer power is floating-point operations per second or FLOPS or flops. A floating-point operation in this case is a calculation. Generally, the capacity of a computer is determined by how many calculations it can perform per second.

Even today's most powerful supercomputers have speeds of exaflops. This means they can solve 1 quintillion math problems in 1 second. The question is, what is 1 quintillion? 1 followed by 18 0's is 1 quintillion. What, having trouble multiplying? Yes, this is the number of calculations today's supercomputers can solve in 1 second.

In short, the Zeta-Class is the father of today's supercomputers. It will work at zettaflops speed. When a supercomputer is capable of operating at 1 zettaflops, it is called a zeta-class computer. Completing 1 sextillion calculations in 1 second is 1 zettaflops. 1 sextillion is 1 followed by 21 0's.

Hopefully, the greatness of the Zeta-class supercomputers is now somewhat realized.

What was known about Japan's Zeta-class,
the name of this new Japanese supercomputer may be 'Fugaku Next'. It is believed that the Japanese company RIKEN and Fujitsu will build this supercomputer together. Both these companies were previously involved in the development of another supercomputer called 'Fugaku'. 'Fugaku Next' will be the successor of the Fugaku series. Sources say that Fujitsu-designed components may be used in the new supercomputer to maintain compatibility between Fugaku and Fugaku Next. However, none of the parties are opening their mouths about the nature of these special elements. There are rumors that world-renowned companies such as AMD, Nvidia or Intel may also be involved in this project.

The supercomputer that Japan built earlier called Fugaku has a speed of 0.44 exaflops. Fugaku was once the world's fastest supercomputer. However, in 2022, America's 'Frontier' supercomputer beat Fugaku to occupy the top spot. Located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, this supercomputer has a speed of 1.2 exaflops. However, Fugaku is still in the top 5 fastest supercomputers in the world.

The main reason for creating Fugaku Next is Japan's ambition to be at the forefront of the supercomputer race. Along with that, Japan wants to be ahead in the technology related to artificial intelligence. According to analysts, Japan has announced plans to build a Zeta-class supercomputer, surpassing all other countries in artificial intelligence and related research and technological excellence. If you remember the history of Japan's technological excellence in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, there is nothing surprising about this Japanese ambition. Japan has that capability as well. And this is why Japan has announced to spend money on this project.

Satoshi Matsuoka, Director of RIKEN Center for Computational Science, said, 'All other countries have advanced in the technology of supercomputers suitable for artificial intelligence. We want to follow their path of knowledge and take Japan's core technological capabilities to a level that will stir the international market.'

But the new Zeta-class supercomputer is no less risky. Especially the new supercomputers are very challenging to use efficiently. The experts of the related sector had predicted this last year. They say that building a Zeta-class supercomputer using current technological facilities would require a huge amount of fuel to run it. In this case, experts believe that running such a Zeta-class supercomputer may require the same amount of energy as the total energy produced in about 21 nuclear power plants!

It turns out that building a Zeta-class supercomputer is not as easy as announcing it. However, since Japan's previous experience in this field is high and no one else dares to announce its creation, it can be assumed that maybe the world's most powerful supercomputer is going to be Fugaku Next!

What about quantum computers?
Since six years ago, the computer world has been buzzing about quantum computers. All major technology companies are scrambling to make this computer. All aim to achieve quantum supremacy before others. However, no organization, be it Google or IBM, has yet achieved quantum supremacy.

Quantum computers do not look like ordinary computers. This machine is made of many metal cylinders and braided wires. It will solve all mathematical problems using complex equations of quantum mechanics.

A normal computer works with two binary numbers 0 and 1. These computers can represent either 0 or 1. Cannot represent two numbers together. And quantum computers can represent both 0 and 1 simultaneously, not only separately. In short, the computer can represent various states between 0 and 1. And because of this, quantum computers can handle multiple tasks simultaneously. Whereas today's conventional computer completes one task and solves another.

The basic units of this particular computer are called quantum bits or qubits. Qubits can do many times more than traditional computer bits. In theory, quantum computers work on two techniques of quantum mechanics. One of these is superposition. The other is the entanglement method.

Researchers say that quantum computer can solve all the incomprehensible problems of mathematics in one go. Experts believe that the use of quantum computers will be more in the industrial sector. And that use will be revolutionary. Quantum computers are capable of working at speeds many times faster than current conventional supercomputers. Google has found in an experiment that the new quantum computer can work 100 million times faster than traditional processors in some cases.

The list of what this computer can do is very long. It can perform analysis on huge data instantly. Quantum computers can contribute to the creation of new medicines for patients, research on the creation of basic materials, the development of artificial intelligence, from the development of weapons in the military sector to help determine war strategies, and even create new flavors of food.

Of course, everything is still a possibility. Because even though the big tech giants have invested huge amounts of money and labor in building quantum computers, they have yet to achieve quantum supremacy. Quantum supremacy is the point at which quantum computers can surpass classical computers in power. This requires a quantum computer of millions of qubits. Whereas the maximum capacity of the quantum computer made in the present world is only about 1000 qubits.

It is understood that the journey is quite long. But recently, a company named Continuum reported a good news. Until now, Google's Sycamore machine was the frontrunner in the race to achieve quantum supremacy. But a month ago, Continuum claimed that their quantum computer is 100 times more efficient than Google's Sycamore. Now, though, this claim is being tested. But it is understood that a new storm is coming to the world of quantum computers!

All in all, it can be said that revolutionary changes are going to come in the world of computers in the next few years. On the one hand, the Zeta-class supercomputer is coming, on the other hand, the quantum computer is eye-catching. Which country or organization can make these first, so now to see. It must be remembered that the hands of gold will be the future of the world!

Sources: Nikkei.com, LiveScience, NDTV, FirstPost, AsiaFinancial.com, PopularMechanics.com, ScienceAlert and Fujitsu.com