Fujitsu to build successor of K supercomputer

 Japanese computer makers Fujitsu, on Monday, said that it is developing a new supercomputer to succeed its K supercomputerbuilt with the state-backed major research institute Riken, which has lost top spot for computing speed to a US supercomputer. 

Masami Yamamoto, President Fujitsu Ltd, told a shareholders' meeting in Yokohama that he hopes to regain the top slot in the world rankings in a few years, after Japan dropped to second place having topped the previous two rankings, according to the announcement by the US-European TOP500 project. 
However, he declined to talk about when the new supercomputer will be available or its expected performance. 

The K supercomputer, now at Riken's facilities in Kobe, was the first to log a computing speed of over 10 petaflops per second. 

Its name draws upon the Japanese word "kei" for 10 to the 16th power, representing the system's performance goal of 10 petaflops. One petaflop is the equivalent to 1,000 trillion operations per second. 

The Sequoia supercomputer at the US Department of Energy achieved 16.32 petaflops per second, taking the top slot in the world rankings as of June.