Supercomputers are the most powerful in the world and are usually on-off designs with a specific purpose. The current fastest, China’s Tianhe-1, works on aircraft design and petroleum exploration. US electrical engineer Seymour Cray founded Cray Research Inc in 1972 and, in 1976, the first Cray-1 supercomputer was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA. The Cray-1 cost $8.8 million and, at 160 megaflops, it was the fastest computer at the time. Its unusual shape stems from Cray’s aim to have the physical components close together, reducing the length of wires down which its signals would have to travel. The Cray-1 is regarded as the first supercomputer.