Legend said Thursday its Deepcomp 1800 would rank 24th in speed among the world's supercomputers, surpassed only by equipment made by U.S. or Japanese companies.
Legend, owned by the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences, is one of the most prominent parts of China's campaign to promote high-tech industries ranging from computers to genetic engineering.
Founded in 1984, Legend competes aggressively with Dell, IBM and other foreign makers in China's market for desktop computers. It is trying to expand abroad and into higher-profit fields.
"Legend will never be a mere common enterprise following behind foreign enterprises, eating dust," chairman Liu Chuanzhi said at a news conference.
Supercomputers, which can cost up to $350 million, are a small but profitable and prestigious market for computer makers.
They are used by governments, companies and academic researchers for tasks that require the processing of huge amounts of data, such as weather forecasting, designing drugs or simulating nuclear explosions.
Deepcomp 1800 is part of Legend's bid for a spot high among the world's top 500 information technology companies, Liu said.
Legend "must enter the international market and ought to have sufficient technical strength,' he said.
According to Legend, the Deepcomp 1800 can perform 1 trillion floating-point operations per second -- the industry measure of computer speed.
The computer fills 20 cabinets that cover a space 46 feet long.
By comparison, the supercomputer Earth Simulator built by NEC of Japan can perform 35.9 trillion calculations per second.
Legend didn't announce a price tag for the Deepcomp 1800. NEC's Earth Simulator is priced at about $350 million, while competing American and Japanese models cost more than $100 million.
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