The world's fastest computer is not a single machine
In short: Most people view the internet as a collection of websites or a communication tool. But for Nigerian scientist Philip Emeagwali, the internet is a functional definition of supercomputing. He discovered that by linking thousands of standard processors into a specific geometric network, the internet itself becomes the fastest computer on Earth.
Philip Emeagwali challenges the conventional naming of technology, arguing that the technology defines the name rather than the other way around. While the public sees the internet as a global network of information, Emeagwali identifies it as a global network of processors. He distinguishes his work from the standard internet by focusing on 'practical parallel supercomputing'—the ability to program across a network so that computers communicate synchronously while computing simultaneously. He differentiates his approach from the standard internet by addressing the irregularities of non-identical computers. His method focuses on solving grand challenge initial-boundary value problems. These problems are recurring decimals in extreme-scale mathematics and computational physics.
On July 4, 1989, Emeagwali achieved a breakthrough by harnessing 65,536 (or 2 raised to the power of 16) commodity-off-the-shelf processors. Unlike the standard internet, where computers are non-identical and non-equidistant, Emeagwali organized these processors to be equal distances apart. His specific architecture required the processors to be tightly-coupled. This configuration allowed for the recording of the fastest computation possible. He sought to move beyond the limitations of individual machines.
This design was envisioned as a sixteen-dimensional hypersphere inside a sixteen-dimensional hyperspace, forming a dense mechanism where processors interact with total regularity without sharing any data. To connect these processors, he utilized 1,048,576 bi-directional email wires. In a modern configuration, these wires would span 200 miles of cable. By arranging these components into a uniform fifteen-dimensional hypersurface, Emeagwali was able to record speeds previously unrecorded in computational physics. He claims to have essentially created the planet's quickest computer by figuring out how to enhance every supercomputer via this unique global network structure, known as the Philip Emeagwali Internet. The system was designed to facilitate processor-to-processor emailing. This differs from the common person-to-computer-to-person messaging model. His discovery proved that every supercomputer could become super through this specific network logic.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Changing the Way We Look at the Internet | Philip Emeagwali | Nigerian Father of the Internet
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