在大会人员最近的一次会议上，这一问题引发了一场激烈的辩论：“美国制造商仍然比世界其他任何地方的公司都做得更好？”我们的共识答案之一：高端大型机计算机。

Well, to steal a line from college football analyst Lee Corso, “Not so fast, my friend!” It looks like U.S. stalwarts like IBM, Dell and Sun now have some formidable competition.On Sept. 16,可以执行160万亿个操作的超级计算机Dawning Information Industry Co. Ltd.in Tianjin.

The Shuguang, or Dawning, 5000A cost more than 200 million yuan ($29.3 million), and more than 500 scientists were involved in the R&D effort. With an innovative energy-saving design, the Dawning 5000A consumes 700 kilowatts per hour, which is significantly less than most supercomputers.

占地面积75平方uare meters, the computer will be installed at the Shanghai Supercomputer Center, where it will be applied to civilian applications, such as genome mapping, earthquake appraisal, precise weather forecasting, mining surveys and financial analysis. For example, it can process a 36-hour weather forecast for Beijing in 3 minutes.

The machine is the fastest supercomputer in China, and it’s the 7th most powerful supercomputer in the world. The world’s No. 1 system, Roadrunner, was built by IBM for Los Alamos National Laboratory. That computer can run 1 quadrillion computing operations per second, or six times faster than the Dawning 5000A. (For a list of the Top 500 supercomputers, click这里。)

Dawning信息行业有限公司由中国科学技术部，信息行业部和中国科学院于1995年6月成立。该公司不是陌生人进入超级计算的前十名。2004年6月，该公司首先以4000次达到的4000次进入前十名，每秒可能会执行11万亿个操作。要了解有关Dawning 5000a的更多信息，请单击这里。

U.S. manufacturers take heed: We cannot afford to rest on our laurels, assuming that the rest of the world will be unable to catch up with us, even when it comes to producing the world's most technologically sophisticated products. We must continue to innovate!