Take a second and turn it into trillions of moments. Measure each one. That’s how precisely an atomic clock at Singapore’s Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) keeps time—and with record-setting accuracy, according to results published in Nature on Sept. 23.

“I am confident that what we have now is the most accurate clock in the world,” says team leader Murray Barrett, a CQT principal investigator and associate professor in the Department of Physics at the National University of Singapore.

The researchers base their claim on measurements showing that their atomic clock, built from the element lutetium, outperforms previous record holders built from different elements.