China built the world’s fastest supercomputer using locally produced microchips, maintaining their lead over the United States, according to a new list released on Monday.
The supercomputer, Sunway TaihuLight, is twice as fast and three times as efficient as the previous leader Tianhe-2, which is also from China, and was developed by the National Researched Center of Parallel Computer Engineering and Technology (NRCPC) and was installed in Wuxi.
A surge in technology has shown in research installations being registered in the last few years, with China leading in 167 systems and the U.S. coming in at second with 165. China leads the performance category as well, due to the top two slots that they currently occupy on the list.
The survey by Top500 — which shows the 500 most powerful commercially available computer systems known — said that the new supercomputer will be used for climate modeling and life science research, and ends speculation that China has to rely on Western technology. It comprises of more than 10.6 million computing cores comprising almost 41,000 nodes.
Other countries that are on the top 10 list are Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Saudi Arabia.
The list — which compiles sites operating the 500 most powerful computer systems — comes out twice per year, with the latest list announced at the 2016 International Supercomputer Conference in Frankfurt, Germany.