China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer has retained its position as the world's most powerful system for the sixth consecutive time, according to a biannual Top 500 list of supercomputers released at the international supercomputer conference in Austin, Texas.

Tianhe-2, or Milky Way­2, with a performance of 33.86 petaflops per second (Pflop/s), was developed by China's National University of Defense Technology and deployed at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou. It has held the title since June 2013.

"Retaining the championship for six consecutive time makes us very proud, and also gives us a lot of pressure and great responsibility. The Ministry of Science and Technology has supported our project on Tianhe-1 and Tianhe-2 for 10 years, during which two five-year plans have passed. From strategic aspects, it is of important meaning," said Lu Yutong, vice chief designer of the Tianhe Project.

The Chinese system is almost twice as fast as the next on the list, Titan of the US Department of Energy, which has a performance of 17.59 Pflop/s. In fact, there has been no change among the ranking of the world's top five supercomputers since June 2013 in the latest edition of the closely watched list.

The Top 500 list is considered one of the most authoritative rankings of the world's supercomputers. It is compiled on the basis of the machines' performance on the Linpack benchmark by experts from the United States and Germany.

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