exascale computer can do at least one quintillion calculations in the time it takes to say, “One Mississippi. When scientists are finished commissioning Frontier, which will be dedicated to such fundamental research, they hope to illuminate core truths in various fields—such as learning about how energy is produced, how elements are made and how the dark parts of the universe spur its evolution—all through almost-true-to-life simulations in ways that wouldn’t have been possible even with the nothing-to-sniff-at supercomputers of a few years ago. And there’s extrinsic pressure to keep pushing computing forward: not just for bragging rights, although those are cool, but because better simulations could lead to new drug discoveries, new advanced materials or new Nobel Prizes that keep the country on top