CHINA has built the world's fastest supercomputer, Tianhe-1A, which is capable of 2.57 quadrillion computing operations per second, pulling ahead of the United States in the global supercomputing race.

Tianhe-1A beat the former No. 1 system, the US-made Cray XT5 or "Jaguar," which is at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in Tennessee, according to the 36th edition of the Top500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, which was released yesterday.

The Jaguar system can perform 1.75 quadrillion operations per second, 92 percent slower than Tianhe-1A, which runs on a Linux-based operating system.

Tianhe-1A is installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin Municipality. The supercomputer can be used for complex work like mine surveying, weather forecasting, the design of high-end machinery and bioinformatics.

Animation and biomedicine companies were queueing to use Tianhe-1A, said NSCC Tianjin Director Liu Guangming, who is going to the US today to receive the certificate for the world's fastest supercomputer.

Yang Xuejun, chief designer of Tianhe-1A, said: "The interconnection between CPUs and GPUs is key to the system's high performance.

"As there have been no precedents to integrate GPUs into high-performance computing, we made much effort to improve the performance and efficiency of GPUs."

Tianhe-1A is estimated to have cost 600 million yuan (US$90.4 million). It was developed by the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha City.

Li Nan, projectmanager for Tianhe-1A, said the team upgraded key technologies such as large-scale integrated chips, node computers and cutting-edge circuit boards. They also made a few breakthroughs in hybridarchitecture, Li added.

Nebulae, another China-made supercomputer, is third on the Top500 list with a speed of 1.27 quadrillion operations per second. Nebulae was developed by Dawning Information Industry Co and is in Shenzhen.

China has five of the world's 100 most powerful supercomputers. The US has 42.

• capable [´keipəbəl] a.有能力；能干的 (初中英语单词)
• system [´sistəm] n.系统，体系，制度 (初中英语单词)
• facility [fə´siliti] n.容易；熟练；灵巧 (初中英语单词)
• yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
• complex [´kɔmpleks] a.复杂的 n.综合企业 (初中英语单词)
• director [di´rektə] n.指导者；....长；导演 (初中英语单词)
• performance [pə´fɔ:məns] n.履行；行为；工作 (初中英语单词)
• project [prə´dʒekt, ´prɔdʒekt] v.设计；投掷 n.计划 (初中英语单词)
• manager [´mænidʒə] n.经理；管理人；干事 (初中英语单词)
• circuit [´sə:kit] n.环行 v.(绕....)环行 (初中英语单词)
• leadership [´li:dəʃip] n.领导(能力) (高中英语单词)
• edition [i´diʃən] n.版本；很相似的 (高中英语单词)
• certificate [sə´tifikət] n.执照；文凭 vt.批准 (高中英语单词)
• efficiency [i´fiʃənsi] n.效力；效率；有能力 (高中英语单词)
• architecture [´ɑ:kitektʃə] n.建筑术；建筑学 (高中英语单词)
• municipality [,mju:nisi´pæliti] n.自治市；市政当局 (英语六级单词)
• designer [di´zainə] n.设计者 (英语六级单词)
• hybrid [´haibrid] n.杂种；混合物 (英语六级单词)