--- title: Obama Calls for the U.S. to Make the World's Fastest Computer description: President Obama issued an executive order calling for the United States to build the world's fastest supercomputer by 2025. canonical: https://time.com/3978402/obama-us-fastest-computer/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-30T14:25:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T09:44:37.004Z article:section: Science og:title: Obama Calls for U.S. to Make the World's Fastest Computer og:description: And he wants it done by 2025 og:url: https://time.com/3978402/obama-us-fastest-computer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76f17eda440b2fec/69885cb7196cf4ddcf0374ae/obama7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4791 og:image:height: 2695 og:image:alt: Barack Obama og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obama Calls for U.S. to Make the World's Fastest Computer twitter:description: And he wants it done by 2025 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76f17eda440b2fec/69885cb7196cf4ddcf0374ae/obama7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obama Calls for the U.S. to Make the World's Fastest Computer  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jul 30, 2015 2:25 PM UTC  U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a speech to the African Union on July 28, 2015, in Addis Ababa. U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a speech to the African Union on July 28, 2015, in Addis Ababa.Evan Vucci—AP  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jul 30, 2015 2:25 PM UTC President Obama has issued an executive order calling for the United States to build the world’s fastest computer. The order, announced on Wednesday, establishes the National Strategic Computing Initiative, which is “designed to advance core technologies to solve difficult computational problems and foster increased use of the new capabilities in the public and private sectors,” [according to the Office of Science and Technology Policy](https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/07/29/advancing-us-leadership-high-performance-computing). One of the goals of the NSCI will be to build the world’s fastest supercomputer over the next ten years. The computer is planned to be capable of working at one exaflop, or one billion billion calculations per second. The office says a supercomputer able to work at this speed could more accurately measure galaxies, weather, molecular interactions or aircraft in flight, as well as [help detect cancer from x-ray images.](https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/nsci%5Ffact%5Fsheet.pdf) “Over the past 60 years, the United States has been a leader in the development and deployment of cutting-edge computing systems,” the office notes. The purpose of the NSCI is “to ensure the United States continues leading in this field over the coming decades.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3978402/obama-us-fastest-computer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3978402/obama-us-fastest-computer/"},"headline":"Obama Calls for the U.S. to Make the World's Fastest Computer","datePublished":"2015-07-30T14:25:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T09:44:37.004Z","description":"And he wants it done by 2025","url":"https://time.com/3978402/obama-us-fastest-computer/","keywords":["policy","Barack Obama","Technology","The White House"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76f17eda440b2fec/69885cb7196cf4ddcf0374ae/obama7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76f17eda440b2fec/69885cb7196cf4ddcf0374ae/obama7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Barack Obama","caption":"Barack Obama","creditText":"Evan Vucci—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/policy/","name":"policy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3978402/obama-us-fastest-computer/","name":"Obama Calls for the U.S. to Make the World's Fastest Computer"}}]}] ```