Chinese Supercomputer

[The Chief]

The Chinese have developed and tested a supercomputer with sustained operations of 1.27 petaflops, (1,270 trillion floating point operations per second) setting a record as the worlds 2nd fastest super computer, surpassed only by the Cray Jaguar at the National Labs in Oak Ridge, TN with 1.75 petaflops capability. The Chinese system is based on Intel IC's with Nvidia graphic IC's.

That said, who knows what lurks in the basement of the NSA supercomputerdom.

The Chinese say they need all that computer power to keep track of their huge financial holds in the U.S.A.

 

[Recovering LSO]

Petaflot? That sounds like a personal activity not to be discussed outside of a bathhouse...

 

[wlawr005]

Anyone know how they cool it?

 

[The Chief]

Anyone know how they cool it?

That is a good question. Long ago LN(2) at around 70 degrees kelvin was the "wave of the future" for these type applications. However, I am only speculating as I have not been involved for some 12 years.

 

[SynixMan]

Anyone else bothered by the fact that American designed CPUs and GPUs are used in a Chinese supercomputer?

 

[eas7888]

If I recall correctly, most of the CPUs/GPUs are not manufactured in the United States. It's no real secret that if you take a lot of CPUs and run them together that you get a super computer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the software and hardware to get them to work together is where the real bread and butter is at.

 

[wlawr005]

If I recall correctly, most of the CPUs/GPUs are not manufactured in the United States. It's no real secret that if you take a lot of CPUs and run them together that you get a super computer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the software and hardware to get them to work together is where the real bread and butter is at.

And the cooling system

 

[The Chief]

Anyone else bothered by the fact that American designed CPUs and GPUs are used in a Chinese supercomputer?

The Genie flew from the bottle some time ago. Here is some interesting reading on the subject. Gov regulations and public (industry/academia) comments on the regs:

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/e7-11588.pdf

Operating systems and application programming supercomters is no small task.

My learned friends tell me the Chinese are working on Phase II of Dawning Nebulae, using, primarily, sequenced and parallel micromputers. Their goal as I hear, 20 petaflops.

 

[Pugs]

That said, who knows what lurks in the basement of the NSA supercomputerdom.

Mostly the alien bodies are in the basement

The supercomputer computer complex is a different building (giving nothing away here, it's labeled on several mapping/photo programs on the web and there's a sign in front of it and you can see it from the parkway) . Building a giant parallel array isn't rocket science. Building the analytics to run on it and doing something with it is the trick and is very non-trivial.

 

[eddie]

Anyone else bothered by the fact that American designed CPUs and GPUs are used in a Chinese supercomputer?

No, I'm flattered.

 

[Flash]

Interesting chart, the Chinese still have a ways to go to catch up to us.

 

[The Chief]

... alien bodies are in the basement ... the analytics to run on it and doing something with it is the trick and is very non-trivial.

Am on a first name basis with the Aliens. That and M204 DBMS we tried to get them to run on ....

Yep, and framing the problem to be solved is a big big part of the equasion. Global Warming models come to mind.

The speed of light is the limiter here, as Admiral Grace Hopper would say as she carried her 10.7 inch piece of copper wire around (Light travels 10. inches in 1 nanosecond). Of course that is at 0 degress kelvin. Heat slows that down, significantly in a copper wire (or other conductor).

Speaking of Naval Officers, I presume everyone hereabouts know that a U.S. Navy Ensign was the first to calculate the speed of light. Everyone from Canoe U knows that, of course. Won the Novel prize as well. Good for him.

 

[SynixMan]

If I recall correctly, most of the CPUs/GPUs are not manufactured in the United States. It's no real secret that if you take a lot of CPUs and run them together that you get a super computer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the software and hardware to get them to work together is where the real bread and butter is at.

Nvidia's stuff is mostly made at TMSC in Taiwan. Intel has fabs around the world. I'm just saying I find it interesting they aren't doing it on their own. They're using out equipment. But then again, even if they designed it, it'd still be copied off our designs.

 

[eddie]

But then again, even if they designed it, it'd still be copied off our designs.

So, do the Chinese design anything?

 

[Jim123]

I just checked to compare, but some of the volunteer/online distributed computing projects post stats higher than this. These are for altruistic people who leave their otherwise idle home computers running overnight. Here's one (UCB) showing ~5 petaflops: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

I guess there's more than one way to skin a cat... or a dog (did I just go there?!).

I guess "boinc" is another one of those double entendre bathhouse terms, hmm...