For the fourth time in a row, the Tianhe-2 supercomputer made by China's National University of Defense Technology has retained its position as the fastest in the world, according to a Top500 supercomputer list released on November 17.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) made announcement on November 14 stating that it will be putting $325 million for the development of two supercomputers that are anticipated to overtake the Tianhe-2's speed by up to five times.

Top500 editor and Professor Jack Dongarra from the University of Tenesseee said that there is no connection between the list and the DOE's announcement.

The professor said it is expected that the US supercomputers will be completed by 2018 and more details about it will be provided by the DOE along the way. Adding to it, he said that until the supercomputers are finished, the Tianhe-2 will still remain as the fastest in the world.

A processing speed of the Chinese supercomputer is 33.86 petaflops per second, which is equivalent to over 33,800 quadrillion calculations per second.

At the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou, the Tianhe-2 supercomputer is placed and the center is reported to update the Chinese supercomputer's processing speed to surpass 100 petaflops per second.

US supercomputer Titan in the second place followed Tianhe-2 with 17.59 petaflops per second and Sequoia in the third place with 17.17 petaflops per second. The supercomputers are placed in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, respectively.

K computer from Japan is in the fourth place with 10.51 petaflops per second and in the fifth place is US other supercomputer Mira with 8.59 petaflops per second and it is placed at the Argonne National Laboratory.

With the total quantity of systems, the US still ranks first with 231, which is a decline from June's 233 and 265 from last year's November list.