NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - A new Japanese supercomputer has taken the title of world's fastest away from an American computer, zipping along nearly five times faster than its closest competitor. <br>
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The NEC Earth Simulator - which creates a ``virtual planet Earth'' to predict climate patterns - tops the 2002 list of fastest supercomputers released Saturday. <br>
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``The climate industry in the U.S. has had inferior machines for a number of years,'' said Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer science professor who leads the group of researchers that tracks the world's 500 speediest computers. He will present the findings at a June conference in Germany. <br>
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The NEC Earth Simulator, as large as four tennis courts, works at a speed of 35,600 gigaflops. A gigaflop equals a billion mathematical operations per second. The top-ranked computer on the list's November 2001 edition, IBM's ASCI White, runs at a speed of 7,226 gigaflops. <br>
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A computer capable of calculating complex equations so quickly could save lives and property by predicting typhoons and other severe weather. <br>
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``Math gives us this wonderful crystal ball to predict the future,'' Dongarra said. <br>
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The new supercomputer, housed at the Yokohama Institute for Earth Sciences, is a breakthrough not just for Japanese technology but scientists everywhere, said Dongarra. He expects U.S. researchers and others to try to tap into Earth Simulator's massive computing power.
