That's 123 billion digits more than the previous number. Computer scientist Fabrice Bellard ran his calculations on a desktop computer, taking 131 days to run the program and then check the results:
I blogged about that record at the time.
Link via Geekologie | Image: flickr user Paul Adam Smith, used under Creative Commons license
Previous records were established using supercomputers, but Mr Bellard claims his method is 20 times more efficient.
The prior record of about 2.6 trillion digits, set in August 2009 by Daisuke Takahashi at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, took just 29 hours.
However, that work employed a supercomputer 2,000 times faster and thousands of times more expensive than the desktop Mr Bellard employed.
I blogged about that record at the time.
Link via Geekologie | Image: flickr user Paul Adam Smith, used under Creative Commons license
In insane times, this doesn't hold a candle to the TARP bailout amongst others. Ironically, the American deficit is far more amazing in dollars as pi is in computations. Were the ones that get to pay for it.