UT was recently named owner of the world’s 15^th most powerful supercomputer and the second most powerful academic computer in the nation by the Top500 list of the world's most powerful computers.

The computer, named Kraken, is supposed to be able to make 166 trillion calculations per second.  The name Kraken comes from a Norse myth about a sea monster.

Since June the computer has computed 40 million hours of calculations and has delivered them to multiple communities within science and engineering fields.

Despite the mind-boggling speeds at which the computer processes, the National Science Foundation, sponsor of the initiative, plans to upgrade the computer multiple times through the course of the year.

According to the university’s website, the National Science Foundation plans on upgrading the computer:

• More than 100,000 cores of individual processors
• 100 trillion bytes of memory
• 32,300 trillion bytes of disk space

These upgrades are supposed to provide 700 million computing hours per year.

Kraken will also calculate issues pertaining to the climate from carbon monoxide, to tides and their effects.

UT is working on this project with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Science Foundation has awarded the partners $65 million for further research with the computer, as well as upgrades and maintenance.