View source for IBM 604

The IBM 604 Electric Calculating Punch is the first use of extreme paralism that I have read:

To preform multiplications and divisions more rapidly in decimal from punched cards,
the 604 used an array of multi tubes 64x64x3 and 16x2 to perform the multiplication of two 8 digit numbers and accumulate the results in 3 machine cycles, and another 2 machine cycles to normalize the results. 

It could muliply two numbers, and punch the result as fast as it could read cards, hence the value to for doing matrix multiplication. It was in use full time for at least three years at one location.