HP has unveiled its new supercomputer, simply called The Machine, something first announced back in 2014. HP is aiming to smash all previous technology in existence with The Machine, as their new supercomputer doesn't need to rely on traditional processors - instead, it will utilize memory for its brute speed.
HP Enterprise explains that The Machine is up to 8000x faster than traditional machines (you'd freakin' hope so), but it's still years away from being released. HP will be aiming at high-end servers for companies like Google and Facebook, with the architecture itself powered by memory-driven computing, we should see this type of memory-driven PC trickle down to the PC one day, I hope.
The Machine uses photonics to transmit data using light, and thanks to its massive, and super-fast memory pool - The Machine can really crank through those datasets. When the data needs to be transferred between processors, things slow down - but HP has thought ahead of time using memory to super-speed the supercomputer.
HP's current prototype of The Machine has 8TB of RAM, which is around 30x what a traditional server is typically equipped with. HP has plans to support anywhere between 8TB and hundreds of terabytes of RAM in its supercomputer - where the company is making a new memory chip called memristor.
Memristor is able to retain all of the data it was working on, even if The Machine (or any device with the new memristor technology) is turned off. HP is hoping that memristors will be ready for when The Machine launches in 2018 or 2019.