Intel and the Department of Energy will build the United States' first "exascale" computer, capable of doing more calculations in a second than all of the Earth's population could perform -- one calculation at a time -- in four years!
The machine can process a quintillion - that's a billion times a billion - calculations per second.
"These are exciting times; I've been in the high performance computing business and seeing how that relates to data finds and analytics and medicine."
Dr. Jan Odegard at Rice says it'll help with everything, including energy production.
"It will help us do a better job doing wind power because we can simulate the weather and the air flow around and how you design wind turbines and where to put them up."
Dr. Odegard says the "exascale" computer will greatly improve our ability to calculate simulations in almost every field.
"What it really means is the ability to transform what we're able to do with computations and simulation modeling and how we can impact both industry and society."
Dr. Odegard says this super computer will also help with building new military weapons. Work is scheduled to begin in 2021.