What’s the world’s most powerful computer? If you answered the US Titan machine then there is a new contender on the block which you are about to find out about.
The Tianhe-2 supercomputer has been developed in China and has now been named as the world’s most powerful computer.
It wasn’t expected to be completed until 205 but the release of Tianhe-2 now means that China takes back the title of owner of the world’s most advanced machine for the first time since June of 2011.
The computer was developed by the Government controlled National University of Defence Technology and a group of international experts led by Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim have now proclaimed it as faster than Titan.
In third place behind these might machines we have the US device Sequoia and then the Japanese K computer.
Twice as Fast as Titan
The list of the 500 most powerful machines on the planet comes out every 6 months, so Tianhe-2 is sure to hold the official title at least until the end of the year. In fact, it is said to be almost twice as powerful as the Titan machine which takes second place currently.
The name of the computer means Milky Way 2 and it is said to operate at 33.86 petflop7sec, which really means that it is capable of carrying out a mind boggling 33,860 trillion calculations every second.
The computer is said to be destined for use in the National Supercomputer Centre in Guangzhou to work on research and education. It has been said that the driving force behind the creation of Tinahe-2 was the idea of making China’s industries less dependent on machines from other countries.