Google calculated pi to 750 billion digits in 2017 using a high-performance computing setup and specialized software.
Here's a breakdown:
- Software Used: Google utilized y-cruncher, a highly optimized program specifically designed for calculating pi and other mathematical constants.
- Hardware: The calculation was performed on Google Compute Engine, leveraging significant computing resources:
- A 64-core instance (implying a powerful multi-processor system)
- 416GB of RAM (allowing for the storage and manipulation of vast amounts of data)
- Extensive storage using both Local SSD and Persistent SSD (providing fast access to the large datasets involved)
- Resource Utilization: The calculation fully utilized the available hardware:
- Engaged all 64 CPU cores at peak utilization
- Consumed over 5TB of SSD storage
In essence, Google didn't discover a new mathematical formula to calculate pi. Instead, they used existing, efficient algorithms (implemented in y-cruncher) and scaled up the computational resources to an unprecedented level, allowing them to compute pi to a massive number of digits.
