China ramping efforts to become supercomputer superpower

London, June 1 (ANI): China is all set to become the world's supercomputing superpower- its Nebulae machine at the National Super Computer Centre in Shenzhen, was ranked second on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list.

This is the second Chinese supercomputer that 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 National Laboratory in Tennessee, has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops.

One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

Jaguar is used by scientists conducting research in astrophysics, climate science and nuclear energy.

On the other hand, 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," the BBC quoted Dr Jon Lockley, manager of the Oxford Supercomputing Centre, as saying.

He said China was rapidly becoming a "player" in high performance computing.

According to reports, Dawning, the company behind the fastest Chinese machine, is building an even faster machine for the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin.

In addition, it is also developing homegrown silicon chips to power the behemoths.

"Their use of high-performance computers is really systematic of their industrial emergence," said Lockley.

The top 500 list was published at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany. (ANI)