Inventions in computer history for the decade.

By Tien Su

  • Microsoft releases Windows 10

    Microsoft releases Windows 10
    Windows 10 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. Microsoft described Windows 10 as an "operating system as a service" that would receive ongoing updates to its features and functionality, augmented with the ability for enterprise environments to receive non-critical updates at a slower pace, or use long-term support milestones that will only receive critical updates, such as security patches, over their five-year lifespan of mainstream support.

  • The first reprogrammable quantum computer was created

    The first reprogrammable quantum computer was created
    Scientists from the University of Maryland's Joint have created the world's first fully programmable and reconfigurable quantum computer by using laser beams to manipulate ions to solve complex algorithms faster than any conventional computer. The computer was made up of five qubits, or quantum bits, which were electrically charged ions trapped in a magnetic field.

  • DARPA developing "Molecular Informatics"

    DARPA developing "Molecular Informatics"
    The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a new "Molecular Informatics" program that uses molecules as computers. This richness provides a vast design space for exploring novel and multi-value ways to encode and process data beyond the 0s and 1s of current logic-based, digital architectures

  • Google announced that it had achieved quantum supremacy

    Google announced that it had achieved quantum supremacy
    Google claimed that its Sycamore quantum computer could perform calculations that would take even the world’s most powerful classical supercomputer 10,000 years to complete – but now it seems that a non-quantum computer crunches the numbers several times faster than Google’s machine, and uses less energy doing so.

  • The first exascale supercomputer - Frontier

    The first exascale supercomputer - Frontier
    The world's first exascale supercomputer is Frontier, which began operating in May 2022 at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) in Tennessee. This machine ushered in the era of exascale computing, which refers to systems that can reach more than one exaFLOP of power – used to measure the performance of a system.