A Chinese supercomputer has been ranked the world’s second-fastest machine in a list issued by US and European researchers, highlighting China’s ambitions to become a global technology center.
The Nebulae system at the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen in southern China came in behind the US Department of Energy’s Jaguar in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The semiannual TOP500 list highlighted Beijing’s efforts to join the US, Europe and Japan in the global technology elite and its sharp increases in research spending, driven by booming economic growth.
It also reflected China’s continued reliance on Western know-how: Nebulae was built by China’s Dawning Information Industry Ltd. but uses processors from Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp., both American companies.
The Nebulae is capable of sustained computing of 1.271 petaflops or 1,271 trillion calculations per second. It said the Jaguar was capable of sustained computing of 1.75 petaflops.
The Chinese computer ranked first in theoretical computing speed at 2.98 petaflops, the group said.