'Titan is world's most powerful supercomputer'

Titan uses microchips more usually used for video-gaming to crunch numbers for climate studies, models of advanced materials and alternatives to petrol.

The machine has seized the top spot in the Top500 - a closely-watched global league of the fastest supercomputers, the Telegraph reported.

Built by Cray at the US government's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Titan is 10 times more powerful than the lab's last supercomputer, Jaguar, which led the world as recently as 2009.

Titan was measured at 17.59 petaflops