A Chinese supercomputer was ranked as the world's fastest machine in the TOP500 list officially issued by U.S. and European researchers on November 16, highlighting China's rapid progress in the field.

The Tianhe-1A system at the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin, is capable of sustaining computation at 2.57 petaflop per second, which equates to a mind-numbing 2.57 quadrillions of calculations per second.

As a result, the former number one system, the U.S. Department of Energy's Jaguar in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which achieved 1.75 petaflop per second, is now ranked in second place, according to the 36th edition of the TOP500 list.