China gains top spot by building fastest super computer: Xi-Jinping

BEIJING: China's success in developing the world's fastest super computer has helped the country gain a top spot in the hi-tech field, Chinese President Xi-Jinping said on Tuesday.

Congratulating computer engineers for the success of Tianhe-2, the world's fastest supercomputer, Xi encouraged them to make further contributions and achievements in a bid to help build an innovative country,

In a statement Xi extended greetings to all the staff who took part in the development of Tianhe-2, which has a peak performance speed of 54.9 quadrillion operations per second.

He said that the success showed that China has gained a leading place in the world in this field, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The semiannual Top 500 listing of the world's fastest supercomputers was released yesterday.

Tianhe-2 is almost twice as fast as the second computer, Titan from the United States, the official media said.

Tianhe-2 was designed and built by China's National University of Defence Technology.

The computer matched home-grown Feiteng-1500 CPUs as well as Intel Xeon and Xeon Phi processors.

This is the second time China has made it to first place in the Top 500 list.

Tianhe-2's predecessor, Tianhe-1A, was the world's fastest supercomputer from November 2010 to June 2011.