The computer, developed by the Legend Group Corp., China's leading computer manufacturer, boasts the same operation speed as the 24th fastest computer in the world's top 500 super computers. The leading 23 super computers were developed by Japan and the United States respectively.

Legend president Yang Yuanqing said the computer will be installed at the mathematics and system science research institute affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in early September. It will be used in calculating hydromechanics, disposing petroleum and earth quake materials, climatic mode calculation, materials science calculation, DNA and protein calculation.

Yang said it only takes the computer two minutes to complete the simulation of global climatic changes in one day, compared with 20 hours by other large computers.

Computers with super calculation speed used to be the tool of small number of scientists in labs in the past, but now they are widely used in economic and social fields, even in filmmaking.

A computer, which is capable of making 85.1 trillion calculations per second, the highest calculation speed in the world, has been recently developed in Japan.

(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2002)