The 8 most powerful supercomputers and where to find them

People are silhouetted against a screen displaying a logo of Fujitsu at CEATEC JAPAN 2012 electronics show in Chiba, east of Tokyo, October 2, 2012. Japan's largest cutting-edge IT and electronics trade show started on Tuesday and runs until October 6 at Makuhari Messe convention center. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao (JAPAN - Tags: BUSINESS) - GM1E8A21I2401

Fujisu's Fugaku supercomputer, in Japan, took the top spot. Image: REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

Katharina Buchholz
Data Journalist, Statista
  • The world's supercomputers have been ranked by their power.
  • Taking the top spot was Fujitsu's Fugaku supercomputer in Japan, due to having the highest theoretical peak performance and highest power capacity.
  • Half of the world's top 8 supercomputers are in America.

Japanese supercomputer Fugaku zipped past all competitors to claim the top spot in the twice-annual ranking of the world's most powerful computational machines released by research project Top500. Fugaku, which was developed by Fujitsu in cooperation with the federal Riken research lab, was able to perform almost three times as many computations per second as former leader of the list, U.S.-based supercomputer Summit.

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Fugaku has not only topped the ranking in the number of computations per second - so-called TeraFLOPS - but in all four categories that supercomputers are judged on by the project. According to the Riken lab, no other computer had achieved this feat so far. Fugaku also had the most cores of all computers ranked, the highest theoretical peak performance for computations and the highest power capacity.

super computers pc tech technology countries comparison dell ibm fujitsu china america mexico japan
The world's top supercomputers. Image: Statista

Supercomputers are used to run complicated simulations that involve a large number of variables. Common uses include economic and climate modeling, neurological research and nuclear science. In the case of Fugaku, the machine's power is also used to research the coronavirus, more specifically to run simulations of how respiratory droplets move through the air in different settings like offices or train carriages.

The list of the top 8 supercomputers in the world includes two Dell and two IBM machines as well as two Chinese supercomputers run by the Chinese government.

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