Tianhe-2: World’s powerful Supercomputer

Tianhe-2 remains world's most powerful supercomputer

Question: Recently, Tianhe-2 topped the list of world’s top 500 supercomputers. It is developed by-

(a) Japan
(b) Singapore
(c) China
(d) France

Ans (c)

Related facts:

  • On November 17, 2015 in Frankfurt, Germany Chinese supercomputer Tianhe-2 topped the list of top 500 super computer of the world.
  • China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer has emerged as the world’s most powerful supercomputer system for the sixth consecutive time.
  • In June 2013 Tianhe -2 for the first time became the world’s fastest computer systems.
  • It is capable of performing calculations with processing speed of 33.86 petaflops per second (Pflop/s).
  • Supercomputer Tianhe-2 has been developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology.
  • Supercomputer Titan of the US Department of Energy has been placed at second position. It has a performance of 17.59 Pflop/s.
  • Supercomputer Sequoia of Tech giant IBM was placed at third position. It has processing speed of 17.17 Pflop/s.
  • Supercomputers are used by governments and major research institutions.
  • Supercomputers play an important role in the field of computational science, and are used for a wide range of computationally intensive tasks in various fields, including quantum mechanics, weather forecasting, climate research, oil and gas exploration, molecular modeling.
  • It is also used for physical simulations such as simulations of the early moments of the universe, airplane and spacecraft aerodynamics, the detonation of nuclear weapons, and nuclear fusion.
  • It occupies too much space, and there is greater power consumption.

Reference:

http://www.top500.org/lists/2015/11/

http://www.top500.org/system/177999