Finally, how many efficiencies the supercomputers have?: And, what do they measure?

Using extremely large number of processing elements in computing systems leads to unexpected phenomena, such as different efficiencies of the same system for different tasks, that cannot be explained in the frame of the classical computing paradigm. The introduced simple non-technical model enables to set up a frame and formalism needed to explain the unexpected experiences around supercomputing. The paper shows that the degradation of the efficiency of the parallelized sequential system is a natural consequence of the computing paradigm, rather than an engineering imperfectness. The workload is greatly responsible for wasting the energy as well as limiting the size and the type of tasks the supercomputers can run. Case studies provide insight how different contributions compete for dominating the resulting payload performance of the computing system and how enhancing the technology made the computing + communication the dominating contribution in defining the efficiency of supercomputers. The model also enables to derive predictions about the supercomputer performance limitations for the near future and provides hints for enhancing the supercomputer components. The phenomena show interesting parallels with the phenomena experienced in science more than a century ago, and through their studying, a modern science was developed.