World's fastest personal supercomputer developed

Scientists have developed the world's first personal supercomputer, 25 times faster than the average PC, a technological breakthrough, which could bring "lightning speeds" to the next generation of home computers.

The Tesla supercomputer, designed by the US-based company NVIDIA, is priced between 4,000 pounds and 8,000 pounds, and looks much like an ordinary PC.

According to the scientists, the new machine will revolutionise the way researchers and medical professionals carry out their work, for instance, it would allow doctors to process the results of brain and body scans much more quickly and tell patients within hours whether they have a tumour.

David Kirk, the Chief Scientist at NVIDIA, said: "Pretty much anything that you do on your PC that takes a lot of time can be accelerated with this. These supercomputers can improve the time it takes to process info by 1,000 times.

"If you imagine it takes a week to get a result (from running an experiment), you can only do it 52 times a year. If it takes you minutes, you can do it constantly, and learn just as much in a day."

Moreover, according to the scientists, the machine could help researchers discover cures for diseases, such as cancer and malaria, much more quickly than using traditional research methods.

This is because the device lets them run hundreds of thousands of simulations to create a shortlist of the drugs that are most likely to offer the potential for a cure, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.

Now, PC maker Dell plans to go for a mass production of the machine. "Before mobile phones were reserved for the few, now we can't live without them. It will be the same with these supercomputers. They are the building block for the computing of the future," its Eric Greffier said.