Supercomputer unveiled at Wright-Patt

Military leaders cut the ribbon Monday on a $25 million supercomputer that’s fast — really fast.

In fact, Air Force officials said the supercomputer known as “Spirit” is able to complete 15,000 trillion calculations every second, making it 36,000 times more powerful than your average PC.

Spirit is named after the B-2 Stealth bomber and is reported to be the seventh fastest in the United States and the 14th fastest computer in the world, according to the base.

WPAFB officials said the computer will allow scientists to virtually perform complicated and expensive weapons tests.

“Instead of going out there and blowing something up, we can simulate it,” said Lloyd Slonaker, head of the supercomputer project. “We save a lot of money that way and we can take a look at the different options available to us.”

The ceremony held at Area B’s Information Technology Complex was hosted by Maj. Gen. William McCasland, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory.

— Staff Writer William Garbe is a senior at the University of Dayton.

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