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Introduction to Computer Science

Introduction

Introduction to Computer ScienceIntroduction
Figure 5.1 What does the word computer really mean? For example, supercomputers (left) and data centers (right) are types of computers. "(credit left: modification of “Columbia Supercomputer—NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility” by Trower, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Public Domain; credit right: modification of "2020 Data Center" by Jefferson Lab/Flickr, Public Domain)"

Chapter Outline

Introduction

We use the word computer a lot, but we may not know a precise definition of it. More often than not, we use it to mean our desktops and laptops. But computers exist in many different forms, like your laptop, smartphone, or tablet. Embedded processors are used to power smart home security systems. When you access your social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any website, you are using very big computers hosted by these companies. These huge and powerful computers are clusters of computers hosted in data centers and supercomputers for some applications.

These computers have many things in common, but they also differ in many aspects. In general, computers all have processors, memory, storage, and input/output devices such as keyboards, screens, and speakers. What are these components? And how do they interact with each other to form what we know as a computer? This is what we will explore in this chapter. The difference between the computer inside your watch and the one running the big sites is the number and strength of processors (computer brain), the size of memory and disks (main means of storage), and how these many pieces are connected to each other. But the main concepts are the same.

A computer’s main job, as you may have guessed, is to do computations—a lot of computations. The faster a computer, the more computations it can do per second. All computer programs you use are based on computations, whether a modern immersive graphics intensive game that leverages artificial intelligence (AI), a text editor, or a web browser. In this chapter, you will learn how computers can do computations in a fast and correct manner using processors, memory, disks, and other related hardware.

A company called TechWorks is taking advantage of leverages such as the latest nanotechnology, processor models known as neuromorphic processors, to enable the creation of the next generation of super society intelligent autonomous solutions (e.g., advanced robotics, autonomous cars and drones, or other autonomous systems). The use of Intel’s Kapoho Point 8-chip Loihi 2 board technology allows TechWorks’ developers to solve larger problems by stacking large-scale workloads and enabling AI models with up to one billion parameters and solving optimization problems with up to eight million variables.

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