What is a petaflop?! March 8, 2013 Share this page: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email A petaflop is a measure of a supercomputer’s calculating speed—it refers to the completion of 1 quadrillion calculations per second. NCSA’s Blue Waters supercomputer can provide a petaflop and more for a wide range of science and engineeering problems. 1 peta = 1 quadrillion = 1015 = 1,000,000,000,000,000 42,000,000,000: 1 quadrillion kernels of wheat would bake up to 42 billion loaves of white bread. 20,000: 1 quadrillion drops of water would fill 20,000 Olympic-sized pools. 1,000: 1 quadrillion watts is equivalent to 1,000 simultaneous lightning strikes. 52,083,333: 1 quadrillion kernels of corn is 52,083,333 acres of corn—the amount of corn grown in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Key: bread slice = 1 billion loaves; rectangle = 200 pools; lightning bolt = 10 lightning strikes Time it takes to perform 1 quadrillion calculations1 person performing 1 calculation per second: 31 million years Time it takes to perform 1 quadrillion calculationsEvery person in the U.S. performing 1 calculation per second: 1 year Time it takes to perform 1 quadrillion calculationsEvery person on Earth performing 1 calculation per second: 1.5 days Time it takes to perform 1 quadrillion calculationsBlue Waters supercomputer performing 1 calculation per second: 1 second Disclaimer: Due to changes in website systems, we've adjusted archived content to fit the present-day site and the articles will not appear in their original published format. Formatting, header information, photographs and other illustrations are not available in archived articles. News Archive