China only started producing its first computer chips in 2001. But its chip industry has developed at an awesome pace.

So much so that Chinese-made chips power the world’s most powerful supercomputer, which is Chinese too.

The computer, known as the Sunway TaihuLight, contains some 41,000 chips and can carry out 93 quadrillion calculations per second. That’s twice as fast as the next-most-powerful supercomputer on the planet (which also happens to be Chinese).

The mind-boggling amount of calculations computers like this can carry out in the blink of an eye can help crunch incredibly complicated data – such as variations in weather patterns over months and years and decades.

The BBC’s Cameron Andersen visited the TaihuLight at its home in the National Supercomputing Center in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi.

Watch the video above to see his exclusive look inside the world’s most powerful computer – and the challenges that this processing powerhouse might try and solve in the near future.

This video is from the series Tales from Modern China, which airs on BBC World News, 2-3 June 2017. Check the schedule for details.

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