Move over Teraflops (1,000,000,000,000 flops), Petaflops is here:D:D. In the computer world, the word flops refers to FLoating point Operations Per Second, which is used as a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating point calculations. Currently, United States has the fastest supercomputer (IBM's Blue Gene/L), that runs at 136.8 teraflops. However, soon Japan might have the fastest one! According to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry of Japan, the planned supercomputer will operate at a maximum speed of 10 petaflops (10,000 teraflops!!).

Blue Gene/L Supercomputer (Courtesy: ITNews)The total amount for the project is likely to reach $716 million to $895 million by the time the project is completed in 2010, if all goes as planned.
Such high-speed computers are necessary for simulating experiments that are difficult to conduct or take too much time in real life. Researchers hope to use the computer to develop new drugs, to simulate the formation of galaxies and to predict the paths of typhoons and intense rainfall.
The Japanese supercomputer held the title of world's fastest until last September but as of June it had fallen to fourth place. USA is also planning a petaflop computer by 2010:):).