Representatives of the Mannheim University (Germany) unveiled a ranking of the most powerful computers on our planet. The list includes a total of five hundred devices. According to the researchers, when compiling it, such an indicator as the speed of solving linear equations was taken as a basis . Based on the published data, as of today, the world's most powerful computer is the Tianhe-2, built by Chinese scientists.
Computer performance
Based on the results of the Linpack benchmark test, this machine is capable of performing 33.86 trillion operations for every second of time. According to this indicator, the most powerful computer in 2013 almost fifteen times surpassed its predecessor - Tianhe-1, which was first demonstrated about three years ago. According to Chinese engineers, such an impressive performance of their development is achieved through the use of the so-called model of extreme parallelism. It is based on the use of a number of Phi coprocessors, which will be discussed later. It should be noted that a similar approach was used by many other developers whose devices were also included in the rating.
Internal "filling" of the device
The world's most powerful computer includes 3.12 million cores. Inside the device, 32 thousand Intel Xeon processors and 48 thousand Xeon-Phi coprocessors function. Due to them, the above-mentioned number of individual cores is formed, interconnected due to the TN Express-2 technology specially developed for these purposes. The amount of memory operated by Tianhe-2 is one petabyte. As for the operating system, the most powerful computer in the world runs on Kylin Linux. The device’s electrical consumption is 17.8 megawatts. Most of the proprietary features of this computer (including processors, operating system, interconnects, software and applications) are designed and implemented in China. The one exception is the processing power of the machine, which is based on chips from Intel.
Location and scope
According to the developers, initially the world's most powerful computer was supposed to start in 2015, but their desire to achieve a positive result led to a reduction in this term. The current location of the device is China University of Defense Technology. So far, various tests have been carried out on it related to the prediction of changes in the climate, various massive calculations, as well as the operation of the device in extreme conditions.
Other powerful computers
If you look at the compiled rating, you can see that not only the most powerful computer in the world is a Chinese development. In addition to him, the list includes another 64 cars that were built and operate in the territory of this country. Most of the most powerful devices (namely 253) are currently deployed in the United States. An interesting fact that concerns the representatives of the list is that chips from Intel are used here in eight out of ten cases.