The speedy Chinese computer, called Nebulae, is based at the National Supercomputing Center, in Shenzhen. It reached a computing speed of 1.27 petaflops, a rate of one quadrillion calculations per second. The machine is theoretically capable of running at almost three petaflops, the highest speed ever. The Cray Jaguar supercomputer, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee, remains the world’s fastest machine on record at 1.75 petaflops, though its theoretical peak performance is lower than Nebulae’s.
The semiannual ranking, released Monday at the International Supercomputer Conference, in Hamburg, Germany, includes 24 Chinese machines.
The United States pioneered the creation of supercomputers, whose high-level processing capacities are applied to calculation-heavy problems like climate simulation, in the 1960s. With 282 machines on the latest list—the most of any nation—the United States remains a leader in supercomputing technology.
But experts expect China to complete a new system that could be the world’s fastest supercomputer later this year, The New York Times reported. Unlike the Nebulae, which uses chips from Intel and Nvidia, the new system is based on components designed and made in China.
