VEECUBED community: MEET THE WORLD'S FASTEST SUPER COMPUTER...........With 3.1 million Intel Core processors

(photo): China's Tianhe-2, now the fastest supercomputer in the world

Deep inside China's National University of Defence Technology, on the outskirts of Changsha, a computer is whirring. But this is no ordinary machine. With 3.1 million Intel Core processors, 1.4 petabytes of RAM and the capacity to perform 33,860 trillion calculations per second, it is the fastest supercomputer on the planet.

In June 2013, China surprised observers by seizing the number one spot in the TOP500, a twice yearly ranking of the world's fastest supercomputers. The Tianhe-2 (or Milky Way-2) was successfully tested almost two years ahead of schedule. Funded by the Chinese government's 863 High Technology Program, with additional support from Guangdong province, it will eventually be deployed at the National Supercomputer Centre in Guangzhou, where it will be used by researchers from across southern China.

Tianhe-2 is the most impressive result to date of a well-funded and targeted drive by China to move to the fore of supercomputing. It has knocked the US Department of Energy's Titan machine off the No.1 position, and although the US still dominates the TOP500 (occupying 252 places in the table), China with 66 places is catching up fast.

The race is now on to see which country will be the first to reach exascale: by producing a supercomputer capable of one quintillion calculations per second. The US, EU, Japan, India and Russia all have substantial research programmes directed towards this goal. But most experts expect China to get there first. In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama warned that "This is our generation's Sputnik moment", as he highlighted supercomputing as one of several fields in which the US was in danger of falling behind. Two years on, an exascale strategic plan has only just been submitted to the US Congress, and the prospects for new funding look uncertain.