AsianScientist (Jun. 24, 2013) – A supercomputer developed by Chinese researchers has been named the world’s fastest, surpassing its closest rival in the United States by almost twice the operating speed.
The TOP500 list, released twice a year since June 1993, is considered the authoritative ranking of the world’s 500 most powerful computer systems. The list was announced June 17 during the opening session of the 2013 International Supercomputing Conference in Leipzig, Germany.
Tianhe-2, or Milkyway-2, is capable of operating as fast as 33.86 petaflops per second, according to TOP500.
Developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, the new reigning supercomputer overtook Titan, a Cray XK7 Jaguar system at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is now ranked second with a performance of 17.59 petaflops per second.
Tianhe-2 marks China’s return to first place on the TOP500 list since June 2011, when its predecessor Tianhe-1A was outpaced by Fujitsu’s K computer, installed at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe, Japan. The K computer is now fourth on the list with a performance of 10.51 pentaflops per second.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Xinhua/Long Hongtao.
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