A Chinese supercomputer has been officially ranked the world's fastest machine in the TOP500 list issued by U.S. and European researchers. The Tianhe-1A system at the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin, is capable of sustaining computation at 2.57 petaflop/s, which equates to a mind-numbing 2.57 quadrillions of calculations per second. According to the 36th edition of the TOP500 list issued yesterday, the former number one system- the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Jaguar in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, that achieved 1.75 petaflop/s – is now ranked in second place. Liu Guangming, director of the Center said Tianhe is a supercomputer system developed by the National University of Defense Technology. It works as a backbone node of Chinese National Grid.