What is the fastest computer in the world?

Boffins from around the world are descending upon Heidelberg in Germany to discover which supercomputer is the most powerful in the world.

The world's most formidable machine will be revealed tomorrow along with a complete top 500 listing.

Last year ASCI White, an IBM machine, held the number one spot. Its peak performance was 12.3 teraflops or the equivalent processing power of every man, woman and child in the world pressing 'enter' simultaneously. Bearing in mind a teraflop is a trillion operations per second, that's a lot of power.

Very simply, supercomputers handle vast databases and carry out huge amounts of computation. Cray Research is one of the best known supercomputer makers but all the major Unix vendors have a finger in the pie too.

It's in the field of research that the machines have really taken root because of their ability to reduce the number of experiments or the length of research time.

But there is also a commercial application for these processing powerhouses. German car maker Opel uses an IBM supercomputer to simulate car crashes.

And supercomputers are also doing their bit to tend to that very British obsession - the weather. The Met Office taps into data used by European weather forecasting organisation ECMW to enable it to get the most precise forecast it can.

And in the world of share trading, Charles Schwabb uses one for processing its data.

Dr Ulla Thiel, head of supercomputing for IBM Europe explained that the technological developments of supercomputers are also useful for machines further down the food chain where they are filtered down towards the mainframe end of the market.

She told silicon.com: "Last year IBM dominated the Top 500 with over 200 entries in the listing. However, the competition in the market is as tough as Formula One racing."

Who will top the list last year? Find out on silicon.com tomorrow.