China has
developed a new supercomputer Tianhe-2, which is almost twice as fast as the
current fastest supercomputer. The Tianhe-2 supercomputer which is nicknamed
Milkyway-2 operates as fast as 30.7 petaflops (quadrillions of calculations)
per second according to University of Tennessee professor Jack Dongara.
This is
almost twice the speed of the U. S. Department of Energy’s fastest
supercomputer, Titan, which operates at a ‘mere’ 17.6 petaflops per second.
The new
supercomputer, Tianhe-2, was unveiled by China’s National University of Defense
Technology (NUDT) during a conference held in late May. It is expected that the
new Chinese supercomputer will provide an open, high-performance computing
service for southwest China when it moves to the Chinese National Supercomputer
Centre in Guangzhou by the end of this year.
NUDT has
listed possible uses for the Tianhe-2 including aiding in government security,
processing big data, simulations for testing airplanes etc.
It is
expected that after testing, the Tianhe-2 would likely top the biannual Top 500
supercomputer list, which is expected to be unveiled during the International
Supercomputing Conference next weekend. This would wrestle the supercomputer
prize from the United States which it just gained last November.
This could
also see China top the list twice in four years after it topped the list in
2010 with the Tianhe-1.
Imagine
that speed! Eeerm, Nigeria, where are we?
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China has built the fastest supercomputer in the world.