China Tops 500 Fastest Computers List Seven Years In A Row: What Does This Mean For Technology?


If you’re looking for the fastest computers, the Top500 list has revealed you may want to consider buying one made in China. For the past seven years, the Asian nation has dominated the list and shown the United States how inferior our technology is.

What does this mean, though? Is China about to take over as the most powerful nation in the world? This is doubtful since the trade-off for this technology has been at the cost of breathable air. China has one of the worst pollution problems in the world, a fact which has led to them no longer accepting plastic waste from the United States.

Having the world’s fastest computers isn’t going to change the public opinion that anything made in China is instantly trash, either. This is one reason why companies in the United States push consumers to buy products made in the United States. The other is simple economics: If you send money outside the nation, there is no guarantee it will return.

The Top500 is a list of supercomputers made around the world, which reveals who is really dominating in the world of technology. Experts in the United States have warned that losing the lead could create a snowball effect in the industry. Computers less capable of processing information will mean more time spent on design, research, and development in fields ranging from weapons to medicines.

When China dominated the Top500 list of the fastest computers published on Monday, the top-ranked machine used locally produced microprocessors instead of those made by Intel. This indicates that Silicon Valley in San Francisco may start losing business as machines made overseas pull their support.

The Sunway TaihuLight was the champion, using only parts made in China. It’s capable of 93 petaflops, which is quadrillions of calculations per second and five times faster than Oak Ridge’s Titan.

These aren’t the computers you find when you head to technology stores. These are the ones you never see until the technology is made public years down the road. They are generally used for analyzing oil spills and designing nuclear weapons, among other specialized fields.

They might even find their way into the cars of the future as self-driving models could come with a hands-free option standard. There is already a kind of mass transportation using similar technology in Maryland just outside Washington, D.C., and it’s 3D printed.

It’s unknown if China will start making deals with Japan, but if they do with their current lead in technology, Sony and Nintendo could start dominating the console wars. Sony has already said that they are trying to win over the PC gaming crowd with an equally powerful console.

However, with China’s censorship laws they have been known to keep themselves separated from the rest of the world. It wasn’t until 2014 that you could even buy a PlayStation in that nation, and it’s doubtful that the selection of games they allow has much variety.

Top500 organizers have noticed China’s rise to dominance with the fastest computers in the past decade and released a statement about it.

“Considering that just 10 years ago, China claimed a mere 28 systems on the list, with none ranked in the top 30, the nation has come further and faster than any other country in the history of supercomputing.”

Other nations with entries in the Top500 list of the fastest computers included Japan, Switzerland, Germany, and Saudi Arabia.

[Image via Pressmaster/Shutterstock.com]

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