Japan supercomputer tops world ranking, pushes China aside in the process

China’s economic might is something that the world is looking at in admiration after they opened up their economy, but who would have thought that the country also possessed the world’s fastest supercomputer? Well, that is all relegated to history now, with Japan overtaking China where the former now owns the world’s most powerful supercomputer. Known as the “K Computer,” it is touted to be three times faster than a Chinese supercomputer, according to the New York Times.

Previously, China displaced the US as the manufacturer of the world’s fastest supercomputer, but guess that didn’t last for long with Japan making quite the comeback statement with the K Computer. Constructed by Fujitsu and located at the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan, the K computer is one “impressive machine” – now isn’t that an obvious statement?

It is said that the K’s performance is equivalent to linking around one million desktop computers – ain’t that a feat? This achievement relegates the Cray XT5 Jaguar system from the US to third place.