[advertise]广告[/advertise]THE National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) on Thursday unveiled China’s fastest supercomputer, which could rival the world’s most powerful computing devices. The supercomputer, called Tianhe, meaning Milky Way, is theoretically able to do more than 1 quadrillion calculations per second (one petaflop) at peak speed. A single-day task for Tianhe might take a mainstream dual-core personal computer 160 years to complete, working nontop — if it lasts that long. NUDT president Zhang Yulin said the 155-ton system, with 103 refrigerator-like cabinets on an area of about 1,000 square meters, was designed to process seismic data for oil exploration, conduct bio-medical computing and help design aerospace vehicles. China’s national high-tech research and development program and Binhai New Area, a major economic development zone in the northern port city of Tianjin, jointly financed Tianhe at a cost of at least 600 million yuan (US$88.24 million). Tianhe’s peak performance reaches 1.206 petaflops and it runs at 563.1 teraflops (1,000 teraflops equals one petaflop) on the Linpack benchmark, which was originally developed by U.S. computer scientist Jack Dongarra. It has become an internationally recognized method to measure a supercomputer’s real performance in practical use. Tianhe’s performance would have made it the world’s fourth-most powerful supercomputer in the most recent ranking in June. (Xinhua)