The Need For Speed

The fastest computer in the world is currently an IBM Blue Gene system. It recently smashed its own record, clocking up 135.5 teraflops - 135.5 trillion calculations a second.

With its 64 full racks, each holding 1,024 processors, it is expected to reach a peak theoretical performance of 360 teraflops this year.

Within two years, petaflop speeds are expected to be reached - a thousand trillion calculations a second.