U.S. to be home to world's fastest supercomputer in 2021

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The world's fastest supercomputer will be built by supercomputer manufacturer Cray and chip designer AMD to accelerate innovation in science and technology in the U.S., the U.S. Department of Energy announced on Tuesday.

Dubbed Frontier, the exascale machine will be built for Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) by 2021.

According to ORNL, the machine will be "the world's most powerful computer with a performance of greater than 1.5 exaflops."

With a calculation ability up to 50 times faster than today's top supercomputers, Frontier can process quintillions of calculations per second. A quintillion is written as 1,000,000,000,000,000,000.

AMD claims that Frontier's bandwidth is 24 million times greater than the average home Internet connection, and can process 100,000 HD films within a second. The supercomputer occupies 7,300 square feet (about the size of two basketball courts) and contains 90 miles of internal cable.

"Frontier's record-breaking performance will ensure our country's ability to lead the world in science that improves the lives and economic prosperity of all Americans and the entire world," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.

Perry added that the supercomputer will provide world-class data and computing resources to American researchers to ensure that the next great inventions are made in the United States.

China is one of the leading players in the supercomputer battle.

According to the semi-annual Top 500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers released last November, China extended its share from 206 to 227, accounting for 45.4 percent of the total.

(Top image via the Oak Ridge National Laboratory)