China Tianhe-1A Becomes World Fastest Supercomputer

With horsepower equivalent to 175,000 laptops, China's Tianhe-1A supercomputer has been named the fastest computer in the world, overtaking rival units in the U.S. and Germany.

Located at China's National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin, the Tianhe-1A has topped the 'Top 500 supercomputers' list.

Tianhe-1A is nearly 1.5 times faster than its closest rival and reaches peak speeds of 2.57 petaflops, while the US XT5 Jaguar performs at 1.76 petaflops. One petaflop is the equivalent of one-thousand-trillion calculations per second.

The supercomputer will be used by scientists across several fields and also be made available to other countries. It will also be used to create simulations to aid Chinese weather forecasts and to help locate undersea oil fields.

According to computer chipmaker Nvidia, 7 of the world's most powerful computers are in the United States, then 2 in China and 1 in Germany.