CHIPMAKER NVIDIA said a new supercomputer built in China is the world’s fastest and is powered by over 7,000 of its graphics processor units.

The supercomputer, built by the National University of Defense Technology and located at the National Supercomputing Centre in Tianjin, has horsepower equivalent to 175,000 laptop computers, Nvidia officials said.

With sustained performance equivalent to 2.5 petaflops, the Chinese computer is 30 per cent faster than the world’s second most powerful supercomputer, which is at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, in the United States, according to Nvidia.

Called Tianhe-1A, the supercomputer will be used by scientists across several fields and also be made available to other countries.

Supercomputers are used in medical imaging, oil exploration and weather forecasting.

– (Reuters)