Development of technology and computer architecture – from 1-processor serial computers to supercomputers
On October 26, 2021 the third lecture of our „Supercomputing in science“ series took place on the premises of the Computational centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Doc. Šperka, who is also responsible for the Computer museum, showed development of computer architectures and it’s components, such as CPU, GPU and RAM.
Computational power increased thanks to new technologies and innovations in semiconductor device fabrication and enabled doubling the number of components per integrated circuit every two years – this trend is described by the Moore’s law. However, we are now approaching physical limits in this area.
Another way of speeding up calculations is to use parallel approach, supported by today’s supercomputer architectures, including high-speed interconnecting network. Doc. Šperka described the history from the first parallel vector computers and Cray-1 supercomputer up to modern supercomputers.
Lecture series is a joint activity of the Computer museum COO SAS and National Competence Center for HPC. NCC, as the primary contact point for HPC in Slovakia, covers, among other things, educational and dissemination activities in this area.
You can watch the recording of the event on Facebook and YouTube and you can already register for our next lectures. Schedule and registration:
- 10. novembra 2021 o 17:00 – Operation systems in multiprocessor clusters
Dušan Bernát (Faculty of mathematics, physics and informatics, Comenius University) - November 23, 17:00 - Short guide to software parallelization
Jaroslav Suchánek (Biomedical Research Center, SAS) - December 7, 17:00 - Federated distributed computing
Ladislav Hluchý (Institute of Informatics SAS) - December 21, 17:00 - Modelling of 2D systems properties using the Quantum Monte Carlo methods
Ivan Štich (Institute of Physics SAS)
More information about the series
Lecture on HPC and AI at the University of Economics in Bratislava 15 Mar - A lecture focusing on current trends in high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) was held at the University of Economics in Bratislava (EUBA).
A Practical Lecture: How to Build Your Career Path Already During Your Studies 14 Mar - At the Faculty of Commerce of the University of Economics in Bratislava, we organized an engaging guest lecture focused on career development in the digital world.
AI and Supercomputers in Practice: A Lecture for TUKE Students 13 Mar - On 5 March 2026, an expert lecture by Dr. Lucia Malíčková from the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) took place at the Technical University of Košice (TUKE), titled “Can Supercomputers and Artificial Intelligence Be Useful?”. The event was held in lecture hall PK7 in a hybrid format (both online and in person) and was attended by 110 TUKE students.