Fast-forward — comparing a 1980s supercomputer to a modern smartphone

Abstract

Modern smartphones possess computing capabilities that vastly exceed those of historical supercomputers. The CRAY-2 supercomputer, which set world records in 1985 with 1.9 gigaflops of processing power, is now surpassed by contemporary smartphones by a factor of approximately 5,000. For instance, the iPhone 12 can perform 11 teraflops, or 11 trillion operations per second. This exponential growth in computing power, generally following Moore’s Law, has resulted in dramatic size and efficiency improvements. While the CRAY-2 occupied 16 square feet of floor space and weighed 5,500 pounds, modern smartphones achieve superior performance in a package weighing mere ounces. To match current smartphone capabilities, a 1985 CRAY-2 would theoretically require 80,000 square feet of space and weigh 27.5 million pounds. This technological evolution has democratized computing power, enabling widespread access to sophisticated computing capabilities and facilitating tasks that were previously unimaginable on mobile devices. - AI-generated abstract.