A Chinese supercomputer has been ranked as the world's second-fastest machine, surpassing European and Japanese systems and underscoring China's aggressive commitment to science and technology.
The Dawning Nebulae, based at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen, China, has achieved a sustained computing speed of 1.27 petaflops -- the equivalent of one thousand trillion mathematical operations a second -- in the latest semiannual ranking of the world's fastest 500 computers.
The newest ranking was made public on Monday May 31 at the International Supercomputer Conference in Hamburg, Germany.
The Chinese machine is actually now ranked as the world's fastest in terms of theoretical peak performance, but that is considered a less significant measure than the actual computing speed achieved on a standardized computing test. The world's fastest computer remains the Cray Jaguar supercomputer, based at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Last November it was measured at 1.75 petaflops.
The United States continues to be the dominant maker of supercomputers. The United States has 282 of the world's fastest 500 computers on the new list, an increase from 277 when the rankings were compiled in November.
Americans designed the first machines that were defined as supercomputers during the 1960s, and the United States has rarely been dislodged from its controlling position as technology leader. (Source: John Markoff, New York Times, May 31, 2010).