Computing Power in Star Trek

[Baffalo]

We've all seen the episodes where Trek loves to show off these powerful computers capable of handling the running of a starship, your holodeck fantasies, computing the sixteenth trillion decimal place of pi, all while replicating a glass of apple juice with a hint of cranberry. We get it that this shit is impressive, but... is it really?

The only numbers I have on hand are Voyager's but that should be fine for us. They quote the following specifications on Memory Alpha:

In the 2370s, isolinear computer systems began to be enhanced by the inclusion of bio-neural circuitry, of which the bio-neural gel packs formed a huge part. (VOY: "Caretaker") Bio-neural circuitry is prone to certain bacterial and viral infections, along with subnucleonic radiation. (VOY: "Learning Curve", "Macrocosm", "One") USS Voyager's main computer processor was capable of sustaining over 575 trillion calculations per nanosecond, granting simultaneous access to 47 million data channels, and operating in conditions ranging from 10 to 1790 Kelvin. (VOY: "Concerning Flight")

Alright, so we have a rough idea of how much information the Voyager computer can reasonably handle with 575 trillion calculations per second. If we assume that Voyager is calculating that as we do today using FLOPS (FLoating-point Operations Per Second), then the best we can compare it to today would be China's Tianhe-2 at the National Supercomputing Center in Guangzhou, running at 33.863 PFLOPS (PetaFLOPS).

Wait a damn minute.

If they're using trillion correctly, then that would mean the Voyager computer is running at approximately 575 x 1012 calculations per second, while the Tianhe-2 is running at 33.863 x 1015 calculations per second. We are outpacing Star Trek in computers!

[Eternal_Freedom]

No we aren't. The article you quote gave Voyagers computing power as 575 trillion per nanosecond, so to get the per-second number you'd need to multiply by 10^9, or one billion.

In other words, Voyager still outpaces modern computers by a factor of one million, assuming this method actually works.

[Baffalo]

No we aren't. The article you quote gave Voyagers computing power as 575 trillion per nanosecond, so to get the per-second number you'd need to multiply by 10^9, or one billion.

In other words, Voyager still outpaces modern computers by a factor of one million, assuming this method actually works.

... fuck. I didn't see the nanosecond. My bad.

[Prometheus Unbound]

We outpace Data, I believe.

[Baffalo]

The lesson to take away here kids is to always check the wording on stuff before you make an ass out of yourself.

Does it ever say what Data's computing power is?

[Tribble]

Sixty trillion operations per second, according to "The Measure of A Man".

[Alferd Packer]

Yeah, the only option we really have to reconcile this is to say in the 24th century's definition of a computer operation is completely different from ours. Otherwise, yes, we're faster than Data.

[Baffalo]

Hmm. I guess we could always say that he's a literal walking super computer. Although given the advancements we've seen just from the 80s... we'd probably have more advanced computers by then.

EDIT: Wording change for clarity.

[Eternal_Freedom]

In fairness, we might be more powerful than Data, but that requires a bigass supercomputer to manage just that while Data fits that processing power into a human-sized head and is also able to move, interact, speak, fight things, lift things etc.

So yeah, in raw computing power we can best him, but he's not just a computer, he's an android and a sentient AI, something that is still pretty far beyond us.

[Elheru Aran]

In short: we may have more brute-force processing power than Data, but he manages to be more *efficient* in the use of his computing power?

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's a good way to put it, yeah.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

In short: we may have more brute-force processing power than Data, but he manages to be more *efficient* in the use of his computing power?

Or, perhaps, Data's brain has a computational engine that can be used for calculation-intensive computational tasks; and they're just quoting the benchmarks of that. There is ample evidence to suggest that Data, in fact, has vastly greater computational power than his sixty teraflop benchmark would suggest. For example, he clearly has high-resolution vision, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic senses. He processes these huge data streams with no apparent effort (i.e. he has the machine vision, balance, and bipedal motion problems licked that currently bedevil us.) He also has a high-enough degree of emotional understanding and function to graduate from Starfleet Academy, on a line officer track, no less; and attain the rank of Commander in a service that appears to value touchy-feely emotional stuff as much as it does a willingness to poke one of the ridiculously dangerous negative space-wedgies that seem to infest Federation space like space-going locusts. This implies he has to have the computational resources available to form a working theory of the human mind, and apply it to multiple instances of humans.

All of these tasks, I suspect, would require more processing power than you can get from bolting together ten contemporary top-line GPUs. So, maybe he has a computational engine to do computer things. Or, maybe, he has a whole bunch of 60 teraflop processing units and they're all networked together in a massively-parallel architecture.

[Enigma]

Outside of the ST universe, at the time (late 80's) 60 trillion operations per second would probably be considered huge and beyond computing ability at the time. If they were to reboot TNG, my guess that Data would get a huge boost in processing power compared to today's super computers.

[Prometheus Unbound]

In short: we may have more brute-force processing power than Data, but he manages to be more *efficient* in the use of his computing power?

He's also probably some form of Quantum computer. As are most, on Trek, I guess?

I mean, if we take real life and extrapolate it to the 24th century - obviously in canon there's no mention of it.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Outside of the ST universe, at the time (late 80's) 60 trillion operations per second would probably be considered huge and beyond computing ability at the time. If they were to reboot TNG, my guess that Data would get a huge boost in processing power compared to today's super computers.

That's the reason that we ended up with "giga quads" and "isotonnes" in Voyager. We try to put that in to terms we understand but they deliberately set out so we couldn't - for this reason - so it doesn't sound out of date in 2015.

[Prometheus Unbound]

No we aren't. The article you quote gave Voyagers computing power as 575 trillion per nanosecond, so to get the per-second number you'd need to multiply by 10^9, or one billion.

In other words, Voyager still outpaces modern computers by a factor of one million, assuming this method actually works.

and you have to remember, assuming voyager is roughly on par with the Enterprise D (the ent-d being "the most advanced mobile computer" (11001001) around), it may have more than one core. The Ent-D had 3 of them, IIRC.

[Enigma]

No we aren't. The article you quote gave Voyagers computing power as 575 trillion per nanosecond, so to get the per-second number you'd need to multiply by 10^9, or one billion.

In other words, Voyager still outpaces modern computers by a factor of one million, assuming this method actually works.

and you have to remember, assuming voyager is roughly on par with the Enterprise D (the ent-d being "the most advanced mobile computer" (11001001) around), it may have more than one core. The Ent-D had 3 of them, IIRC.

I doubt Voyager would have the same number of cores as the E-D. With the number of people E-D carries, all of them in one instance or another accessing the computer for various functions. I doubt Voyager needed similar processing power.

[Omeganian]

Data can store a hundred petabytes. Impressive for the Eighties, but already doesn't quite sound 24th Century - we can fit that on a bookshelf (gonna be a bit expensive though).

[Prometheus Unbound]

Data can store a hundred petabytes. Impressive for the Eighties, but already doesn't quite sound 24th Century - we can fit that on a bookshelf (gonna be a bit expensive though).

ah but he can store that in a chip in his head, though

[Borgholio]

ah but he can store that in a chip in his head, though

Is it a single chip or a large number of them? How much of his head is reserved for data storage? If it's most of his head, then that is a bit less impressive.

[Prometheus Unbound]

ah but he can store that in a chip in his head, though

Is it a single chip or a large number of them? How much of his head is reserved for data storage? If it's most of his head, then that is a bit less impressive.

well his entire head seems to store all his knowledge, his AI programming (that's gotta be more than few lines of HTML lol), his auditory and visual sensors, capacitors, power generators, buffers and resistors (see warp plasma flying through his brain in Disaster) and everything else as *well* as his storage capabilities. It can't be that flippin' big.

Storage doesn't seem that much of an issue, to be honest, in Trek. I know they changed it in Generations but originally his emotion chip was about 5mm across and had the width approximately that of a floppy disk strip.

[trekky0623]

Data is also binary instead of the "quad" system they seem to be using on the Enterprise. In "Measure of a Man" he says he has a storage capacity of 800 quadrillion bits, or 100 Petabytes, whereas the Enterprise and then Voyager (with its ridiculous data storage inflation) always described storage in "quads," whatever those are—probably something to do with quantum computing.

What with his inferior storage technology and his glacially slow processing power, it's a wonder Soong even managed to get Data working in the first place.