The main computer core is the primary computer processing facility on board any Federation starship or space station. The computer core is designed to run every system onboard a start ship from weapons to propulsion systems. The computer core and its functionality can be access by the crew of a starship through the Library Computer Access and Retrieval System, or LCARS, which provides verbal and keypad interfaces.

Standard Federation computer system design includes three fully redundant computer cores on board most Starfleet starships. These cores are cylindrical in shape and may be as large as ten decks depending on the size of the starship. Two main computer cores are normally placed in the primary hull that are 100% redundant, if either core fails the other core can assume the full load of computer processing with no interruption. A third core normally placed in the stardrive hull that serves as a back up to the first two cores and controls the stardrive section when separated from the primary hull. In the event of a failure of any of the cores, each core it able to control all primary systems onboard the starship.

Each core has a series of subspace field generators, similar to those in the warp engines, which create a warp field around the computer core. This field allows the core to operate at faster than light processing speeds. On larger Starfleet vessels like the Galaxy class, computer processing power is provided by FTL nanoprocessor units distributed throughout each level of the core. Long-term and short-term computer storage memory is composed of 2,048 memory modules each composed of 144 isolinear chips. This storage can be accessed at a rate of 4,600 kiloquads/sec and has a total storage capacity of 630,000 kiloquads. Smaller Starfleet ships may have smaller main cores and less processing power and storage. Each core is tied to the ships optical data processing network.

Computer processing power is supplemented by quadritronic optical subprocessors distributed throughout the ship. These subprocessors do not operate at FTL speeds but improve the response time of the main computer system and are primarily intended to monitor the operating status of the ships systems. The subprocessors also provide redundancy to the main computer cores in case of core failures.