Tianhe-2 retained top spot in the biannual Top 500 list for supercomputers, June 24, 2014. [Photo / Xinhua]

2. Nov 16: Tianhe-2 retains spot as world's most powerful supercomputer

China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer has retained its position as the world's most powerful system for the sixth consecutive time, according to a biannual Top 500 list of supercomputers released on Nov 16.

Tianhe-2, or Milky Way­2, with a performance of 33.86 petaflops per second (Pflop/s), was developed by China's National University of Defense Technology and deployed at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. It has held the title since June 2013.

The Chinese system is almost twice as fast as the next on the list, Titan of the US Department of Energy, which has a performance of 17.59 Pflop/s.