sutton092

TOP500 has been compiling lists of the world's most powerful supercomputers for the last quarter of a century. Back in June 1993 the world's most powerful computer was Numerical Wind Tunnel at Fujitsu National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan followed by CM-5/1024, Thinking Machines Corporation Los Alamos Laboratory in the USA.  In that  year the top 500 included 232 in the US, 115 in Japan, 56 in Germany, 25 in France and 24 in the UK. There were three in Taiwan but none in Mainland China. The first Chinese supercomputer did not appear in the top 500 until November 1999. First forward to June 2018. There are now 206 supercomputers in China, up from 202 last November, 124 in the US, down from 143, 36 in Japan, up from 35, 22 in the UK, up from 15, 21 in Germany, no change, 18 in France, also no change. So China's displacement of the US continues but there is one ray of hope. The world's most powerful supercomputer is in the US for the first time in five and a half years: ...

The latest  QS World University Rankings and the  THE World Reputation Rankings have just been published. The latter will feed into the forthcoming world rankings where the two reputation indicators, research and postgraduate teaching, will account for 33 per cent of the total weighting,  The THE reputation rankings include only 100 universities. QS is now ranking close to 1,000 universities and provides scores for 500 of them including academic reputation and employer reputation. The publication of these rankings has led to claims that British and American universities are performing well again after  a period of  stress and  difficulty. In recent years we have heard a great deal about the rise of Asia and the decline of the West. Now it seems that THE and QS are telling us that things are beginning to change. The rise of Asia has perhaps been overblown but if Asia is narrowly as Northeast Asia and Greater China then there is definitely something going ...

The Nature Index ranks countries and institutions according to their publications in the most highly reputed scientific journals. It is  a reliable guide to performance at the highest levels of research. Here are the academic institutions in the current top 100 that have risen or fallen by ten per cent or more in the latest edition. The indicator is adjusted fractional count 2016-2017. The 2018 world  rank is on the left. The percentage increase or decrease is on the right. I think I see a few patterns here. Rising Institutions 14.  National Institutes of Health, USA   10.0% 20.  Kyoto University  15.1% 31.  University of Chinese Academy of Sciences 64.8% 37.  National University of Singapore  10.5% 41.  Indian Institutes of Technology (all of them)  28% 44.  Fudan University 11.1% 61.  Texas A and M University  23.7% 62.  Shanghai Jiao Tong University 30.4% 68.  Wuhan University 31.3% 69.  Univer...

QS has published the percentage of responses to this year's academic survey (which is about the best universities for research) from different countries.  The table below combines the percentages in the surveys of 2007, 2013 and 2018 (for the "2019" rankings) ranked by the percentages for 2013. The data for 2009 and 2013 are from a previous post . There are some interesting things here. The UK has more responses than France and Germany combined.  There are more responses from Malaysia than from China. There are more responses from Kazakhstan than from India. There are almost as many responses from Australia, Canada and New Zealand as there are from the USA. The number of responses from these countries has risen by a percentage point or more since 2013: Russia, Malaysia, Iraq, Kazakhstan. The number of responses from these countries has fallen by a percentage point or more since 2013: USA, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Hungary.  Table: Percentage of responses to QS academic su...

As the number and scope of university rankings increase it is time to start thinking about how to rank the rankers. Indicators for global rankings might include number of universities ranked (Webometrics in 1st place), number of indicators (Round University Ranking), bias, and stability. There could also be an indicator for crass materialism. Here is a candidate for first place.  CNBC quotes a report from Wealth-X (supposedly downloadable, good luck) and lists the top ten universities, all in the USA, for billionaires. Apparently, the ranking also includes universities outside the US. 1.  Harvard 2.  Stanford 3.  Pennsylvania 4.  Columbia 5.  MIT 6.  Cornell 7.  Yale 8= Southern California 8= Chicago 10 Michigan.