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CHINA is developing a third prototype exascale computing machine — also known as a super supercomputer — and plans to launch it by June next year.

The Sunway exascale computer prototype is being developed by the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering and Technology and the National Supercomputing Center in Jinan, the capital of east China’s Shandong Province.

The NRCPC was behind the Sunway TaihuLight, the world’s fastest computer at the 2016 and 2017 International Supercomputing Conferences in Frankfurt, Germany.

An exascale computer is able to execute a quintillion calculations per second, around eight times faster than the Sunway TaihuLight.

The increase in speed will advance research in climate change, space science, medicine and oceanology among others, developers said.

China and the US are currently leading the field. In China, prototypes are being developed by the NRCPC, Dawning Information Industry Co (Sogon) and the National University of Defense Technology.

They have been spearheading China’s supercomputer efforts with their respective brands: Sunway, Sogon and Tianhe.