Top500 Organization has released its biannual list of the world's fastest computers, with China's Tianhe-2 topping out at number one.
And the discrepancy in speed is wider than you might think.
The list for the world's fastest supercomputers has recently run through a handful of models: in June 2011, Japan's "K" supercomputer took number one, in June 2012, IBM's Sequoia won the top spot and in November 2012, Cray swooped up first place with their Titan supercomputer.
Now, Tianhe-2 stands at number one, at least for the time being. National University of Defense Technology computer technicians built the machine in China, after they completed working on its predecessor, the Tianhe-1A supercomputer, which one first place for fastest supercomputer in November, 2010.
According to Forbes, Tianhe-2 will be put into action two years prior to the original deployment date, at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzho.
Tianhe-2 was built with all Intel processors, containing 16,000 nodes. Each of the nodes hold two Xeon IvyBridge processors and three Xeon Phi processors-that makes 3,120,000 total processor cores, working to perform at a whopping 33.86 petaflops per second. Forbes reported that number is almost twice as fast as Cray's Titan, which performs at 17.59 petaflops per second. Even the Tianhe-1a performed at 2.56 petaflops persecond, and that computer was the number 10 on the list of fastest in the world.
Besides the Intel processors, all other developments-design, operating system, etc.-were created in China.
For the most part, IBM heads up the list for fastest computers-five of the top ten speediest supercomputers were made by IBM, in addition to 24 of the top 100.
Cray and Fujitsu also have a high number of developments on the Top 500 list.
