Supercomputing: Past, present, and a possible future

Summary form only given. Supercomputers are the most powerful and fast computing instruments in the world. Expensive, huge, and power hungry, they compete twice a year for their ranking in the Top500 list. Supercomputers also represent the leading edge in computer technology. It can be argued that the computing technology developed for supercomputers is found in desktop environments 10 years later, and in embedded systems another 10 years later. However, even supercomputers have hit the power wall, which is reversing the above observation. Supercomputers today are built from components designed for the desktop environment. In this talk we will review the evolution of supercomputer architectures, discuss some of their current and future challenges, and present a glimpse of a possible future, in which we close the circle and build a supercomputer using embedded technology.