China is ramping
China is working hard to become a world power in computer technology.
JaguarThe US owned Jaguar has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops
Its Nebulae(星云) machine at the National Super Computer Center in Shenzhen, was ranked second on the
For the first time, a second Chinese supercomputer appears in the list of the top ten fastest machines.
However, the US still dominates the list with more than half the Top 500, including the world's fastest, known as Jaguar.
The Cray computer, which is owned by the Oak Ridge
One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
It is used by scientists conducting research in astrophysics(天体物理学) , climate science and nuclear energy.
By comparison, China has 24 machines in the list. Its fastest has a top speed of 1.20 petaflops, more than double the speed of its previous top supercomputer. However, it has a theoretical top speed of nearly 3 petaflops, which would make it the fastest in the world.
The fastest machine in the UK - which has 38 supercomputers on the list - is housed at the University of Edinburgh. It has a top speed of 0.27 petaflops.
"The Top 500 list definitely has an element of flag waving," said Dr Jon Lockley, manager of the Oxford
Quick thinking
He said China was rapidly becoming a "player" in high performance computing
Dawning, the company behind the fastest Chinese machine, is reportedly building an even faster machine for the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin. In addition, it is also developing home-grown siliconbehemoths(巨兽) .
"Their use of high-performance computers is really systematic
The machines tend to be used for industrial research, such as aircraft design and petroleum
Dr Lockley said this was becoming increasingly common around the world.
"Whenever possible, everything is done in a supercomputer," he said.
"Look at Formula One - it's getting rid of all of its wind tunnels and replacing them with supercomputers. It's the same in the aerospace
"It means you can all the modelling in the supercomputer and then do just one real world test."
Many of the US machines, by contrast, are owned by the government and are used to monitor the nuclear weapon stockpile(储备) .
The US has one other petaflop machine - owned by the US Department of Energy. Roadrunner, as it is known, held the top spot until Jaguar displaced it in 2009.
All others machines on the list run at so-called teraflop speeds.
A teraflop is the equivalent of one trillion calculations per second.