New Chinese supercomputer named world's fastest system

FRANKFURT, June 20, 2016 -- Horst Simon (R), deputy director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, poses with Fu Haohuan (C), deputy head of China's National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, and Yang Jinzhe, a special researcher of the Wuxi center, during the certificate-conferring ceremony in Frankfurt, Germany, June 20, 2016. China's new supercomputing system, Sunway-TaihuLight, was named the world's fastest computer at the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany on Monday. (Xinhua/Deng Chao)

FRANKFURT, June 20 -- A new Chinese supercomputer on Monday was named the fastest system in the 47th edition of the TOP500 list of the world's top supercomputers.

Sunway TaihuLight, with a new system built entirely using processors designed and made in China topped the list of the Top 500 supercomputers with 93 quadrillion calculations per second, according to the newest edition of the list which was announced at the 2016 International Supercomputing Conference here.

Sunway TaihuLight replaced Tianhe-2, an Intel-based Chinese supercomputer that has claimed the No. 1 spot on the past six TOP500 lists.

The system was developed by the Chinese National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering and Technology and installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, Jiangsu province.

It is also the first time that China has led the list with 167 systems, overtaking the United Stateswhich has 165.