LONDON (TIP): A computer in the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (Pune) has been declared the 44th fastest machine in the world, capable of 719 trillion calculations per second. In all, 12 Indian computers have made it to the list of the world’s 500 fastest super computers. The world’s fastest computer is capable of 33,863 trillion calculations per second and it was made in China. Tianhe-2 (meaning milky way), developed by China’s National University of Defence Technology, has a performance of 33.86 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second). In comparison, India‘s fastest computer performs at 7.19 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second). Tianhe-2 ‘s power is almost double the score achieved by the second most powerful machine: the American Titan supercomputer, which clocked 17.59 petaflop/s.
The list of the world’s fastest supercomputer is compiled every two years by the University of Mannheim in Germany, using a test known as the Linpack benchmark. It measures how fast the computers can solve a special type of linear equation, but does not take account of other factors – such as how fast data can be transferred from one part of the system to another – which can also influence real-time performance. The US still dominates the overall list of fastest supercomputers accounting for 265 of the top 500. It’s followed by Asia (115 systems, down from 118) and Europe (102 machines, down from 112).