美国超越中国，重夺全球“最快超级计算机”桂冠

Summit, the US’s new supercomputer, is more than twice as powerful as the current world leader.

美国新的超级计算机“顶峰”处理速度是目前世界上最快计算机的两倍以上。

The machine can process 200,000 trillion calculations per second - or 200 petaflops.

该机器每秒可以进行20亿亿次计算，即20亿亿次浮点运算。

China’s Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer, until now the world’s most powerful machine, has a processing power of 93 petaflops.

之前中国的 “神威太湖之光”超级计算机，是迄今为止世界上最强大的机器，拥有9.3 亿亿次浮点运算的处理能力。

Summit’s initial uses will include areas of astrophysics, cancer research and systems biology.

“顶峰”超级计算机的最终用途将包括天体物理学、癌症研究和系统生物学领域。

It is housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, where it was developed in partnership with IBM and NVidia.

“顶峰”超级计算机由位于田纳西州的橡树岭国家实验室（ORNL）、IBM和NVidia联合合作开发。

Supercomputers are typically large, expensive systems featuring tens of thousands of processors designed to carry out specialised calculation-intensive tasks.

超级计算机通常是个庞大而昂贵的系统，包括数万个处理器，专门用于执行密集型计算任务。

Summit contains 4,608 compute servers and has more than 10 petabytes of memory.

“顶峰”超级计算机包含4,608台计算服务器和一个超过10 PB的内存。

ORNL director Dr Thomas Zacharia said in a speech to mark its launch on 8 June that Summit had already been used to run a comparative genomics code while it was being built.

ORNL主管汤姆斯·撒迦利亚博士在6月8日发表的一次演讲中表示，“顶峰”超级计算机已经被用于比较基因组学代码。

Literally as the machine was being assembled they were getting on the machine and running, he said.

“顶峰超级计算机组装完成后，直接运行成功”，他说。

Imagine [driving a] race car while you’re putting the tyres on.

“想象一下，当你更换轮胎后，驾驶赛车狂飙。”

’Back in the game’

最快超级计算机的竞赛

In the most recent chart of the world’s top supercomputers, published in 2017, the US owned 143 of the top 500 while China owned 202.

在2017年发布的世界顶级超级计算机的最新排序中，美国拥有500强中的143位，而中国拥有202位。

The US’s previous fastest supercomputer, Titan, was ranked fifth.

美国之前最快的超级计算机泰坦名列第五。

We know we’re in a competition and it matters who gets there first, said US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, speaking at the ORNL event.

美国能源部长里克·佩里在ORNL活动上发言时说：“我们正在和中国赛跑，重要的是谁先到达那里。”

The ability to show the rest of the world that America is back in the game and we’re back in the game in a big way is really important.

“能够向世界展示美国重新取得领先地位，这种能力是非常重要的。

Summit’s computing capacity is so powerful that it has the ability to calculate 30 years’ worth of data saved on a desktop in one hour... this is about changing the world."

“顶峰的计算能力非常强大，能够在一个小时内计算出保存在桌面上30年的数据......这是一件关于改变世界的事情。”