China creates fastest computer in the world, challenging US dominance in making supercomputers

The computer can make about a quadrillion calculations a second, according to its makers

Andrew Griffin @_andrew_griffin 19 hours  ago4 comments


A supercomputer that can make more than one million billion calculations a second (Rex) Rex
A Chinese supercomputer is the world’s fastest – and uses only Chinese technology for the first ever time.

The announcement shows the fast development of Chinese supercomputers and is a demonstration of the way that the US – once easily the dominant force in making massively powerful computers – is getting challenged.

China also displaced the US as the country with the most supercomputers in the top 500 ranking of the most powerful computers in the world. China had 167 systems and the United States had 165. Japan was a distant No. 3 with 29 systems.
Although Chinese computers have topped the ranking before, this year marks the first that the computer that did so was entirely using Chinese chips.

Last year's Chinese winner in the TOP500 ranking maintained by researchers in the United States and Germany slipped to No. 2, followed by a computer at the U.S. government's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. 

Supercomputers are one of a series of technologies targeted by China's ruling Communist Party for development and have received heavy financial support. Such systems are used for weather forecasting, designing nuclear weapons, analyzing oilfields and other specialized purposes. 

"Considering that just 10 years ago, China claimed a mere 28 systems on the list, with none ranked in the top 30, the nation has come further and faster than any other country in the history of supercomputing," the TOP500 organizers said in a statement. 

This year's champion is the Sunway TaihuLight at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, west of Shanghai, according to TOP500. It was developed by China's National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology using entirely Chinese-designed processors. 

The TaihuLight is capable of 93 petaflops, or quadrillion calculations per second, according to TOP500. It is intended for use in engineering and research including climate, weather, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and data analytics. 

Its top speed is about five times that of Oak Ridge's Titan, which uses Cray, NVIDIA and Opteron technology. 

Other countries with computers in the Top 10 were Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Saudi Arabia. 

The TaihuLight is due to be introduced Tuesday at the International Supercomputing Conference in Frankfurt by the director of the Wuxi center, Guangwen Yang. 

"As the first No. 1 system of China that is completely based on homegrown processors, the Sunway TaihuLight system demonstrates the significant progress that China has made in the domain of designing and manufacturing large-scale computation systems," Yang was quoted as saying in the TOP500 statement. 

The TaihuLight uses Chinese-developed ShenWei processors, "ending any remaining speculation that China would have to rely on Western technology to compete effectively in the upper echelons of supercomputing," TOP500 said in a statement. 

The second-fastest computer, the Tianhe-2 at the National Supercomputer Center in the southern city of Guangzhou, is capable of 33 petaflops. It uses chips made by Intel Corp. 

Among countries with the most computers on the top 500 list, Germany was in fourth place with 26 systems, France was next with 18, followed by Britain with 12.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/china-creates-fastest-computer-in-the-world-undermining-us-dominance-in-supercomputers-a7091916.html

MY COUNTRY, NIGERIA WILL GET THERE ONE DAY

where is nigeria on the list?

Up till now my Nigeria can't couple ordinary domestic calculator.

Just coupling!!??

All engineering schools in this country should be closed and both the lecturers and graduates charged & prosecuted for impersonation ...and what have you.

Even underG shld be sent to yaba left for formatting.

tolugar:
Up till now my Nigeria can't couple ordinary domestic calculator.

All engineering schools in this country should be closed and both the lectures and graduates charged prosecuted for false impersonation ...and what have you.

Even underG shld be sent to yaba left for formatting.

hahhahahahhahahahhahahaha. Bust my brain. True talk tho. Odinary calculator we cannot build

tolugar:
Up till now my Nigeria can't couple ordinary domestic calculator.

Just coupling!!??

All engineering schools in this country should be closed and both the lecturers and graduates charged & prosecuted for impersonation ...and what have you.

Even underG shld be sent to yaba left for formatting.

Of course, Engineers in Nigeria will always be talked down on threads like this. Do you wonder why we are here? Because most Nigerians will rather not patronize made-in-Nigeria if there are other options. I don't blame Nigerians but COREN who is supposed to make headway for Engineers in Nigeria just like the medical profession has. Kudos to China whom many thought will never make it. Why is China where they currently are? They use homegrown tech, same with Japan. . .in fact, I stand to be corrected, most advanced nations use homegrown tech.

Ever heard of NNS Andoni? Even the second one about to be made (that is if it is not nearing completion)? Those are Nigerian made vessels.

When Innoson brought his cars into the market, what did some Nigerians like you say? (some will come now to call it assembly but before you that, look at the quoted post - just coupling)

When the war happened that it was said Biafran soldiers made their weapons and refined oil themselves, what did the Nigerian government do after the war?

You want us to be among the league of nations with advanced Engineering, just hope your govt. spends more money on STEM, make universities update their curricula, upgrade the labs in the universities to reflect a 21st century lab, make it compulsory that every Engineering graduate about to serve gets posted to various Engineering firms in the country, build R & D centres while also encouraging those who have the brains to do so with incentives. If it that bad that they do not trust Nigerian Engineers, they should bring back those using certain incentives who has made headway the world over in Engineering to head Engineering parastatals while influencing them with zero or minimal politics, increase your power generation and make transmission and distribution effective, look up solutions provided by many Engineers concerning power, make the steel mills in Nigeria work and watch small Engineering companies spring up all over the nation while competing among themselves and make us produce and design our own tech to match our climate and also design for other African nations.

We lost out on semiconductor wars, we should start heading for nanotechnology.