China dominates list of world's top supercomputers

China's self-developed supercomputer Sunway-TaihuLight operates at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi city, east China's Jiangsu province, 26 July 2017. [Photo: IC]

Chinese firm Sunway has managed to get two of its applications for its Taihu Light Super Computer in the running for this year's Gordon Bell Prize for supercomputing.

The Sunway Taihu Light had three of its applications in the running for last year's Gordon Bell Prize, one of which took the top prize.

Taihu Light tops the list for the 4th year in a row among the world's top 500 supercomputers.

This marks the tenth time in a row that a Chinese-made supercomputer has ranked first on the list.

Jack Dongarra is a professor with the University of Tennessee.

"This year, for the Gordon Bell Prize, there are only three entries. So three papers qualified. Two of those are from the Chinese machine, the TaihuLight. It's again a strong sign and a strong showing that the Chinese machine is capable of doing really significant computations and solving some very challenging problems."

There are currently 202 supercomputers operational in China.

This is well-ahead of the United States in second, which has 144 supercomputers operational.

Professor Jack Dongarra says China's supercomputing investment seems to be paying off.

"China's made a significant investment in high-performance computing. When you look back, around the year 2001, there were no supercomputers in China, zero. Today they are such a dominant force in terms of high-performance computing, they have the most supercomputers. They have the biggest supercomputers. So there's clearly a strong investment has been made in high-performance computing. It's a realization that it is important. That it benefits the industry."

Sunway's TaihuLight has been operational for a year-and-a-half.

It's being credited with helping research teams make several hundred achievements in over 20 different fields, including meteorology, aerospace, advanced manufacturing and biology.