The US Has the Highest Number of Supercomputers In A Single Country, but China’s Are Better
Top500 list of supercomputers has 109 on the list that are courtesy of China; that’s 72 more than they reported six months ago. According to reports, the sheer count of supercomputers in the country has tripled, and many of them are considered some of the world’s most powerful machines.
China’s Most Powerful Machine Yet: the Tianhe-2
China’s Tianhe-2 has been the world’s most powerful machine in the world according to the Top500 list of supercomputers for six years in a row, 2015 included. It was created by China’s National University of Defense Technology, and it’s currently being used at a supercomputer center in Guangzhou. It can make 33.86 quadrillion calculations per second.
That’s twice as fast as the US’s fastest supercomputer, the US Energy Department’s Titan. The United States has 200 supercomputers in the Top500 list, but this is the lowest number it’s been in 22 years, which indicates that there has been a steady decline in the number of supercomputers in the country for quite a long time.
Supercomputers Are Used to Predict Weather Forecasts, Making Drug Discoveries and DNA Sequencing
While the power of these machines is not directly indicative of how advanced technologies are in the countries that make them, it is indicative of the economic and business evolution of the countries. Since China has been the main site of job outsourcing, it has been able to overcome most other superpowers in terms of economy and business.
The true value of supercomputers is that they can help benefit the world quite significantly, and countries like China have the best opportunity at the moment to make ground-breaking research to even save the world. In addition, China has the money to invest in these super machines, and their supercomputers have remained in the top 5 of the Top500 list since 2013.
So China has the means, the talent and the equipment to set them in gear to make some great changes in technology.
