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Several government agencies, most notably the Department of Energy, have been deeply involved in the development of supercomputers over the last few decades, but they've typically worked separately. The new initiative will bring together scientists and government agencies such as the Department of Energy, Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation to create a common agenda for pushing the field forward.

The specifics are thin on the ground at the moment. The Department of Energy has already identified the major challenges preventing "exascale" computing today, according to a fact sheet released by the government, but the main goal of the initiative, for now, be to get disparate agencies working together on common goals.

Chief among the obstacles, according to Parsons, is the need to make computer components much more power efficient. Even then, the electricity demands would be gargantuan. "I'd say they're targeting around 60 megawatts, I can't imagine they'll get below that," he commented. "That's at least £60m a year just on your electricity bill."