Superconductivity is not relevant to current computers. Our best superconductors operate at about a hundred degrees C below freezing points (I'd have to check for actual numbers) and would require constant cooling to operate in an every-day situation

Do you mean semiconductivity?

Fast Electronic Switches Type II superconductors can be used to as very fast electronic switches (as they have no moving parts), due to the way in which a magnetic field can penetrate into the superconductor - this has allowed Japanese researchers to build a 4-bit computer microchip (compared to today's 32-bit and 64-bit processors) operating at about 500 times the speed of current processors, where heat output is currently a major problem with typical speeds approaching the 1GHz mark. An article in Superconductor Week focuses upon the efforts of NASA, DARPA and others to build a 'petaflop' (a thousand-trillion floating point operations per second - compared to today's 'teraflop' (1 trillion Flops per sec) computers) computer using superconductor technology. http://www.chemsoc.org/exemplarchem/entries/igrant/uses_noflash.html The National Science Foundation, along with NASA and DARPA and various universities, are currently researching "petaflop" computers. A petaflop is a thousand-trillion floating point operations per second. Today's fastest computing operations have only reached "teraflop" speeds - trillions of operations per second. Currently the fastest is one of the IBM Blue Gene/L computers running at 280.6 teraflops per second (with multiple CPU's). The fastest single processor is a Lenslet optical DSP running at 8 teraflops. It has been conjectured that devices on the order of 50 nanometers in size along with unconventional switching mechanisms, such as the Josephson junctions associated with superconductors, will be necessary to achieve such blistering speeds. TRW researchers (now Northrop Grumman) have quantified this further by predicting that 100 billion Josephson junctions on 4000 microprocessors will be necessary to reach 32 petabits per second. These Josephson junctions are incorporated into field-effect transistors which then become part of the logic circuits within the processors. Recently it was demonstrated at the Weizmann Institute in Israel that the tiny magnetic fields that penetrate Type 2 superconductors can be used for storing and retrieving digital information. It is, however, not a foregone conclusion that computers of the future will be built around superconducting devices. Competing technologies, such as quantum (DELTT) transistors, high-density molecule-scale processors , and DNA-based processing also have the potential to achieve petaflop benchmarks. http://superconductors.org/Uses.htm Superconductors & Cryoelectronics in the Petaflops-Scale Computer Project The Hybrid Technology Multi-Threaded Architecture project led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has set its sights on a supercomputer that would be two hundred and fifty times faster than today's fastest supercomputer. RSFQ superconducting circuits and other cryoelectronic components form the core of the computer's design. http://www.superconductorweek.com/scce/feature-petaflops.htm # A fast ride in a cold machine. - from WIRED archive - Petaflops Computing # Cold comfort for chip talk - a Science Update from Nature (Journal) # [4] JOSEPHSON JUNCTION LOGIC SYSTEMS - from Superconductivity (origin uncertain) http://science.uniserve.edu.au/school/quests/superwq.html http://www.search.com/search?q=computer+with+superconductors These technologies are currently not used in personal computers, but are used in mainframe and super computers. "Fifth Generation computers - Artificial Intelligence: Fifth generation computing devices, based on artificial intelligence, are still in development, though there are some applications, such as voice recognition, that are being used today. The use of parallel processing and superconductors is helping to make artificial intelligence a reality. Quantum computation and molecular and nanotechnology will radically change the face of computers in years to come. The goal of fifth-generation computing is to develop devices that respond to natural language input and are capable of learning and self-organization. http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/2002/FiveGenerations.asp Since the data transmitted over LANs is becoming critical in daily business operations, it's considered the fourth utility. Research being done with superconductors and light-based computers will soon put the power of today's super computers on tomorrow's desk top. http://www.pcns.net/lan.html http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#14 The use of parallel processing and superconductors is helping to make artificial intelligence a reality. Parallel processing is the simultaneous use of more than one CPU to execute a program. Ideally, parallel processing makes a program run faster because there are more engines (CPUs) running it. In practice, it is often difficult to divide a program in such a way that separate CPUs can execute different portions without interfering with each other. http://www.techiwarehouse.com/cms/engine.php?page_id=a046ee08 D-Wave Systems is building a 'quantum' computer to solve intractable real-world problems. The aggressiveness of D-Wave's timetable is made possible by the simplicity of its device's design: an analog chip made of low-temperature superconductors. The chip must be cooled to -269 °C with liquid helium, but it doesn't require the delicate state-of-the-art lasers, vacuum pumps, and other exotic machinery that other quantum computers need. http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/14591/

The book you have read would appear to be incorrect if it was stating that Superconductivity is currently used in mainstream computing. Superconductivity is a phenomenon exhibited by some substances when cooled sufficiently that they no longer exhibit resistance to electrical energy. I did research and a talk into it last year, so if you want to know a little bit more let me know.

Speed, and I don't mean drugs!