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China claims to have fastest supercomputer

Written by James Delahunty @ 30 Oct 2010 9:09 User comments (17)

China claims to have fastest supercomputer

China claims to have built the world's faster supercomputer, surpassing the Cray XT5 Jaguar supercomputer in the United States.
The Tianhe-1A was unveiled on Thursday and claims a performance record of 2.507 petaflops (flops == floating point operations per second; petaflops == 1015), beating the Cray XT5 Jaguar's 1.75 petaflops record. The Chinese system will have to wait to be crowned the world's fastest supercomputer until the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany in a couple of weeks, which will compile a list of the top 500 supercomputers in the world.

It is powered by 7,168 Nvidia Tesla M2050 GPUs and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs. The system still requires U.S.-made processors, but the very high-speed interconnect technology and software that runs the system was developed in China. It was designed at the National University of Defense Technology in China and comprises 103 computer racks, consumes 4.04 megawatts of electricity and covers 17,000 square feet.



"Certainly there's some nationalistic pride in having the fastest computer, but it's also a signal that the U.S. is not the dominant force when it comes to supercomputing," said Jack Dongarra, a computing expert at the University of Tennessee.

Dongarra recalled Japan's holding of the crown for supercomputer speed in 2002, which he said spurred the United States on to regain the record. While he hopes the same thing happens again, he said the United States needs to invest in the development of the software, algorithms, models and other technologies instead of just splashing out on shiny new hardware when it is produced by chipmakers.

Supercomputers are used when phenomenal amounts of computational power is required. They are important for scientific research, biomedicine, weather analysis and other tasks.

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17 user comments

130.10.2010 21:17

Being Chinese designed/assembled, it will probably take the title of the most dysfunctional supercomputer in the world as well.

231.10.2010 01:52

...And it probably also takes the title of, "Computer Containing the Most Lead".

"Certainly there's some nationalistic pride in having the fastest computer, but it's also a signal that the U.S. is not the dominant force when it comes to supercomputing," said Jack Dongarra, a computing expert at the University of Tennessee.

...Well, other than the fact that the processors and GPUs are all designed in the USA.

331.10.2010 08:35

Wonder if I can buy it on DealExtreme?

41.11.2010 09:06

Quote:
[Supercomputers] are use in..."and other tasks"
- such as nuclear weapons modeling.

54.11.2010 12:51

I wonder how much child labor went into building it.

64.11.2010 13:17

Don't you hate sour grape posts/comments? If China have the fastest supercomputer, the proper response is "we can do better!" The CAN DO attitude in the good old USA is dying with the current gen. The other day I heard this on the radio and some expert said that such supercomputer cost millions of dollars to operate in terms of energy. Well, that's true, but nevertheless, it's still a sour grape comment.

74.11.2010 15:48

Can't say as that I see any sour grape posts/comments (if it's all the posts above you're referring to). All I seen were a few post that gave me a little chuckle and I moved on.

There's a difference between some one posting is bit of harmless humor and someone posting serious negativity.

I do understand what you're saying, though, and the results are already present. Our education systems ranks towards the bottom of the list. We are no longer THE superpower. Our healthcare system is in turmoil.

84.11.2010 16:19

Don't get me started on the education... I'm heart broken as an American citizen and I'm really worried about the current gen. You would think that with the computers and internet, kids can learn almost anything they want right? All the kids want to be is a rock star or ball player. Not that there's anything wrong with it, just that, sigh, we got plenty of those and supercomputers are not designed by rock stars or ball players.

94.11.2010 17:21

I'm right there with you in agreement.

The tools to learn have never been more obtainable and easier to use. The problem is the lack of motivation. This generation is spoiled and they don't even know it.

104.11.2010 20:19

Originally posted by Gnawnivek:
Don't you hate sour grape posts/comments? If China have the fastest supercomputer, the proper response is "we can do better!" The CAN DO attitude in the good old USA is dying with the current gen. The other day I heard this on the radio and some expert said that such supercomputer cost millions of dollars to operate in terms of energy. Well, that's true, but nevertheless, it's still a sour grape comment.
Very true. Americans whinge at everything these days. Sour grapes is exactly right.

114.11.2010 21:43
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124.11.2010 21:57

Originally posted by bhetrick:
Can't say as that I see any sour grape posts/comments (if it's all the posts above you're referring to). All I seen were a few post that gave me a little chuckle and I moved on.

There's a difference between some one posting is bit of harmless humor and someone posting serious negativity.

I do understand what you're saying, though, and the results are already present. Our education systems ranks towards the bottom of the list. We are no longer THE superpower. Our healthcare system is in turmoil.
Extremely well said; Kudos!

135.11.2010 05:09

Originally posted by KillerBug:
...And it probably also takes the title of, "Computer Containing the Most Lead".

"Certainly there's some nationalistic pride in having the fastest computer, but it's also a signal that the U.S. is not the dominant force when it comes to supercomputing," said Jack Dongarra, a computing expert at the University of Tennessee.

...Well, other than the fact that the processors and GPUs are all designed in the USA.

Yeah, most probably by foreigners working for the US companies !!
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 05 Nov 2010 @ 5:10

145.11.2010 05:19

Originally posted by bhetrick:
I'm right there with you in agreement.

The tools to learn have never been more obtainable and easier to use. The problem is the lack of motivation. This generation is spoiled and they don't even know it.
Easy availability of learning tools makes it even worse. I remember some 40 years ago when I was working in Chicago. People with 16 and 20 years of retail billing experience could not mentally calculate 5% sales tax. They could not add 10 5 digit numbers by simple arithmetic. They needed a chart for the first one and a mechanical adding machine for the latter.

Here in India electronic calculators are not allowed until you get to college, and that too only non programmables ones. This forces one to develop mental skills so essential in daily life.

If you see any TV news coverage of NASA control center you will notice almost all present have a slide rule on their table and not a calculator.

Unless your fundamentals and basics are clear and strong there is no hope !!
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 07 Nov 2010 @ 10:44

155.11.2010 05:48

Originally posted by Gnawnivek:
Don't get me started on the education... I'm heart broken as an American citizen and I'm really worried about the current gen. You would think that with the computers and internet, kids can learn almost anything they want right? All the kids want to be is a rock star or ball player. Not that there's anything wrong with it, just that, sigh, we got plenty of those and supercomputers are not designed by rock stars or ball players.
that might be cause ball players and musicians can get rich and famous practically overnight and most people can't name a great modern scientist.

165.11.2010 11:11

Originally posted by pmshah:
Originally posted by bhetrick:
I'm right there with you in agreement.

The tools to learn have never been more obtainable and easier to use. The problem is the lack of motivation. This generation is spoiled and they don't even know it.
Easy availability of learning tools makes it even worse. I remember some 40 years ago when I was working in Chicago. People with 16 and 20 years of retail billing experience could not mentally calculate 5% sales tax. They could not add 10 5 digit numbers by simple arithmetic. They needed a chart for the first one and a mechanical adding machine for the latter.

Here in India electronic calculators are not allowed until you get to college, and that too only non programmables ones. This forces one to develop mental skills so essential in daily life.

If you see any TV news coverage of NASA control center you will notice almost all present have a slide rule on their table and not a calculator.

Unless your fundamentals and basics are clear and strong there is no hole !!
I agree with what you've said, but the TOOLS TO LEARN mentioned by bhetrick don't necessarily mean calculators. The tools could be portable dictionaries, specific knowledge databases or internet search engines. In the "older" days, we had to do a lot of manual work to get the information we need. I agree that the "old" days actually made us learn the hard way, but you can't deny the fact that we wasted a lot of precious time...

The current gen have all of those wonderful tools at their disposal (remember our computers? 386? 486?). The kids are just motivated differently now a day. In the Asian cultures, the older generations are to blame if the younger generations don't learn. I don't like China for a lot of reasons, but one thing I have to give them credit for, they work damn hard!

The Chinese kids can speak English with ease now a day. English is sort like a 2nd language to them. Those kids can do algebra in 2nd or 3rd grade! While our kids learning add/subtract, the Chinese kids already mastered multiplication/division.

Yeah, it's easy to be a comedian too, but that won't help us build supercomputers either. Besides, we have too many comedians in Congress already don't we?

Sure, you can get a chuckle here and there, but when you think about it, even the jokes are uninspired. I wonder if there's any jokes left to tell in another decade...

175.11.2010 11:11

Originally posted by pmshah:
Originally posted by bhetrick:
I'm right there with you in agreement.

The tools to learn have never been more obtainable and easier to use. The problem is the lack of motivation. This generation is spoiled and they don't even know it.
Easy availability of learning tools makes it even worse. I remember some 40 years ago when I was working in Chicago. People with 16 and 20 years of retail billing experience could not mentally calculate 5% sales tax. They could not add 10 5 digit numbers by simple arithmetic. They needed a chart for the first one and a mechanical adding machine for the latter.

Here in India electronic calculators are not allowed until you get to college, and that too only non programmables ones. This forces one to develop mental skills so essential in daily life.

If you see any TV news coverage of NASA control center you will notice almost all present have a slide rule on their table and not a calculator.

Unless your fundamentals and basics are clear and strong there is no hole !!
I agree with what you've said, but the TOOLS TO LEARN mentioned by bhetrick don't necessarily mean calculators. The tools could be portable dictionaries, specific knowledge databases or internet search engines. In the "older" days, we had to do a lot of manual work to get the information we need. I agree that the "old" days actually made us learn the hard way, but you can't deny the fact that we wasted a lot of precious time...

The current gen have all of those wonderful tools at their disposal (remember our computers? 386? 486?). The kids are just motivated differently now a day. In the Asian cultures, the older generations are to blame if the younger generations don't learn. I don't like China for a lot of reasons, but one thing I have to give them credit for, they work damn hard!

The Chinese kids can speak English with ease now a day. English is sort like a 2nd language to them. Those kids can do algebra in 2nd or 3rd grade! While our kids learning add/subtract, the Chinese kids already mastered multiplication/division.

Yeah, it's easy to be a comedian too, but that won't help us build supercomputers either. Besides, we have too many comedians in Congress already don't we?

Sure, you can get a chuckle here and there, but when you think about it, even the jokes are uninspired. I wonder if there's any jokes left to tell in another decade...

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