The latest Top500 ranking released on Tuesday, Nov. 17 reveals that China still has the world's most powerful supercomputer. The report also revealed that the number of supercomputers in China nearly tripled within a span of just seven months.

The Top500 report said China had 37 supercomputers in May. That number had increased to 109 in November.

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In terms of calculation power, China's Tianhe-2 retains the top spot. The supercomputer has won the number one spot for a record six consecutive times. The supercomputer is currently housed at the National Super Computer Center located in the city of Guangzhou.

The United States still has the most number of supercomputers in the world. The country has 200 machines in total. The US' total number of supercomputers declined from 231 in July. The current number of supercomputers located in the US is the lowest the country has ever recorded since Top500 started compiling the list in 1993.

In terms of computing power, the Chinese Tianhe-2 supercomputer is capable of performing up to 33.86 quadrillion calculations in a single second. The supercomputer has 3.12 million cores and consumes at least 17,000 kilowatts of power, according to Top500 list.

The Tianhe-2 supercomputer was created by China's National University of Defense Technology.

The Cray XK7 Titan in the US ranks number two in terms of computing power. The Titan has 560,640 cores and can perform up to 17.59 quadrillion calculations per second. In calculation comparison, at least two Titan supercomputers can fit into a single Tianhe-2.

Many tech and market analysts say the rise in the number of supercomputers in China can be attributed to the economic boom of the country.

During the 80s and 90s, China's most dominant industry was manufacturing. Investors, who made a fortune in that industry, are now looking for other outlets of investments and have decided to enter electronics and computers.

IDC Asia Pacific vice president of enterprise computing Rajnish Arora told the BBC, "Now as these companies become bigger, they want to invest in technical research capabilities, so that they can create a lot more innovation and do basic design and engineering work."

TagsSupercomputer, China Supercomputer, US supercomputer, fastest supercomputer, best supercomputer, Tianhe-2, Tianhe 2 supercomputer, Top500 Supercomputers Ranking, Cray XK7 Titan, Tianhe 2 supercomputer