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China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer unseats US Titan as 'world's fastest'

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The Tianhe-2 was named the world's fastest supercomputer according to an official listing. Photo: Xinhua

China has built the world’s fastest supercomputer, almost twice as fast as the previous US holder and underlining the country’s rise as a science and technology powerhouse.

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The semiannual TOP500 official listing of the world’s fastest supercomputers released on Monday says the Tianhe-2 developed by the National University of Defence Technology in central China’s Changsha city is capable of sustained computing of 33.86 petaflops per second. That’s the equivalent of 33,860 trillion calculations per second.

The Tianhe-2, which means Milky Way-2, knocks the US Department of Energy’s Titan machine off the No 1 spot. It achieved 17.59 petaflops per second.

Supercomputers are used for complex work such as modelling weather systems, simulating nuclear explosions and designing jetliners.

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It’s the second time China has been named as having built the world’s fastest supercomputer. In November 2010, the Tianhe-2’s predecessor, Tianhe-1A, had that honour before Japan’s K computer overtook it a few months later.

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