The world's fastest supercomputer sits in a building at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the hills of East Tennessee, and boy-oh-boy is it fast. 

It's name is “Frontier” and with nearly 50,000 processors it operates at exascale speeds, capable of performing over one quintillion calculations per second. It’s like having the processing power of millions of everyday computers working together at the same time. Its advanced capabilities are being used by both industry and academia in a variety of topics, including climate science to improve long-term forecasts, drug discovery through molecular simulations, and artificial intelligence training and research.

Despite its immense computing power, energy efficiency is still a priority. Frontier’s power consumption peaks at 27 megawatts, enough to supply power to 10,000 homes. It requires innovative processes to cool the system, currently being handled by water at an ambient temperature. 

Organizations from around the world continue to line-up for a chance to use the system that promises to tackle their most challenging research simulations and data crunching. If you happen to see dark smoke billowing from the hills of eastern Tennessee, it might not be a raging wildfire. It just might be Frontier deep in thought and churning out answers.