China's homegrown computer built using locally made chip technology is now the world's fastest computer. The creation of the said mega computer follows after the US stopped exporting Intel Xeon chips to China due to concerns that they are being used for nuclear weapon tests.
According to PC World, the Sunway TaihuLight at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, China ranked number 1 on the TOP500 list of supercomputers. The Sunway TaihuLight has 10,649,600 cores with an RMAX of 93,014 tflop/s and an RPEAK of 125,435.9 tlflop/s. Bloomberg adds that the world's fastest computer is also energy efficient with only 15.3 megawatts of power for its gigantic specs.
What's also astonishing is that the system is built solely from Chinese semiconductors. Jack Dongarra, a professor at the University of Tennessee, said, "It’s not based on an existing architecture. They built it themselves. This is a system that has Chinese processors."
Bloomberg notes that the creation of the supercomputer shows China's perseverance in building homegrown chips to ultimately cut its dependence on imports and reliance on the U.S. Also, Dongarra notes that China has made big strides when it comes to its technology. In 2001, the Chinese has no entries in the 2001 TOP500 list. Now, it has 167 entries, which is slightly higher than the U.S.' 165 entries.
China has previously won the TOP500 list using an Intel chip, but this is the first time that the country made everything on its own. This feat, according to Bloomberg, might end Intel's dominance in the market as it currently holds 96 percent of it.
The second computer on the TOP500 list also came from china, the Tianhe-2 (MilkyWay-2) from the National Super Computer Center in Guangzhou, China. The Titan from DOE/SC/Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the U.S. ranked third.