It takes a supercomputer to beat the World's best chess player. In 1997, Gary Kasparov admitted defeat to IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer. IBM has an excellent Web site devoted to the match at www.chess.ibm.com.

In the past three years, supercomputer technology and applications have changed remarkably. Today, supercomputer technology is largely based on "super" versions of the same processors that you find in microcomputers. Although supercomputers have not abandoned their specialized markets, they frequently perform the same tasks as mainframes. Seymour Cray was the well-known pioneer of supercomputer technology. You can read a 1994 interview with Cray from the Smithsonian archives at americanhistory.si.edu/csr/comphist/cray.htm or an excellent book, The Supermen : The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer by Charles J. Murray (John Wiley & Sons, 1997). Cray's company, Cray Research, was purchased by Silicon Graphics in 1996.

Additional Links

The World's Fastest Computers (Byte, January 1996) is an excellent article on supercomputers. For an update on supercomputer technology, visit the sites of supercomputer vendors using the directory Supercomputer and Parallel Computer Vendors.

Science for the Millennium   Supercomputers might seem removed from your everyday life. However, supercomputing power has been used to understand storm systems and track weather patterns--information that could be essential for protecting the world's food supply. This multimedia exhibit from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications demonstrates the use of supercomputing in radioastronomy, the study of black holes, and virtual environments.

Cray Research   At the Cray Research Web site, you can see examples of supercomputing in hurricane prediction and in neural research. You can also learn how supercomputers are used in the chemical process industry; at Los Alamos national laboratory; and at NASA.

Parascope   An index of parallel computing sites is presented as a service of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Computer Society. Here you can find links to supercomputing centers, supercomputer vendors, and the top 500 supercomputer sites.