China Builds World’s Fastest Supercomputer and Overtakes U.S. In Definitive Ranking

The world’s fastest supercomputer is Chinese, once again. According to the latest release of the TOP500 List, a biannual ranking of the top 500 supercomputers in the world, China’s Sunway Taihulight is number one with a LinPACK benchmark of 90.1 petaflops per second.

To put this in perspective, this system is capable of running quadrillions of calculations per second and is a blistering three times faster than its predecessor, China’s Tianhe-2, which had previously topped world rankings since 2013.

It is also distinctive in that it is built entirely out of processors that were developed and manufactured in China, whereas the Tianhe-2 had used US-made Intel processors.

Intel continues to provide processors for a whopping 91 percent of systems on the list. However, the development of the Sunway Taihulight highlights China’s waning reliance on US semiconductor technology.

The US government placed an export ban on all high-performance computing chips to China last year, arguing that Chinese supercomputers were being used in a manner that was contrary to American national interests.

While supercomputers are used in a wide variety of tasks, including harmless ones such as climate forecasting, they are also seen by governments as critical to national security, aiding research in nuclear tests and the development of cyber-weaponry. The Sunway Taihulight was funded by a government program to end China’s reliance on foreign technologies.

China now has a greater share of the world’s fastest supercomputers than America does, edging out the US by 167 to 165.

This marks the first time since the inception of the TOP500 List that US systems do not represent the greatest share of the world’s fastest supercomputers. The European share also fell from 107 to 105, whereas the Asian share increased to 218 from 173.

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