This has broken the previous record of 50 trillion figures, the University of Applied Sciences Graubünden announced.

The aim of the project was not to know the exact series of figures but to be able to calculate them, the researchers write on their website. For the calculation, the university of applied sciences used a high-performance computer system in its Center for Data Analytics, Visualization and Simulation (DAViS). That hardware is also used for, for example, RNA analysis, flow simulations or text analyses. “We wanted to achieve several goals with this world record attempt,” says Professor Dr.

Heiko Rölke of DAViS. ‘During the preparation and execution of the calculations, we were able to build up a great deal of knowledge and optimize our processes. This is to the advantage of our research partners, with whom we carry out projects involving data analysis and simulation that are very computationally intensive.’

The number pi, taught in school as 3.14 and representing the ratio between the circumference and diameter of a circle, was already known to the ancient Greeks. In the past, the number had to be calculated by hand, a time-consuming activity. But nowadays, those calculations are taken over by computers.

The previous record for calculating pi was held by Google, which calculated the number in its cloud to 50 trillion digits in 2019. The Swiss researchers took 108 days to calculate. The last known digits of pi are now 7817924264.