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Chinese Supercomputer Is Ranked World’s Second-Fastest, Challenging U.S. Dominance
New York Times ^ | 06/01/2010 | John Markoff

Posted on 06/01/2010 10:32:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

A Chinese supercomputer has been ranked as the world’s second-fastest machine, surpassing European and Japanese systems and underscoring China’s aggressive commitment to science and technology.

The Dawning Nebulae, based at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen, China, has achieved a sustained computing speed of 1.27 petaflops — the equivalent of one thousand trillion mathematical operations a second — in the latest semiannual ranking of the world’s fastest 500 computers.

The newest ranking was made public on Monday at the International Supercomputer Conference in Hamburg, Germany. Supercomputers are used for scientific and engineering problems as diverse as climate simulation and automotive design.

The Chinese machine is actually now ranked as the world’s fastest in terms of theoretical peak performance, but that is considered a less significant measure than the actual computing speed achieved on a standardized computing test.

The world’s fastest computer remains the Cray Jaguar supercomputer, based at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Last November it was measured at 1.75 petaflops.

In the previous year’s ranking, the Chinese had the fifth-fastest computer, a system that was based at a National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, China. That machine has now dropped to seventh place.

The United States continues to be the dominant maker of supercomputers, and is the nation with the most machines in the top 500. The United States has 282 of the world’s fastest 500 computers on the new list, an increase from 277 when the rankings were compiled in November.

But China appears intent on challenging American dominance. There had been some expectation that China would make an effort to complete a system based on Chinese-designed components in time for the June ranking. The Nebulae is based on chips from Intel and Nvidia.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; clintonlegacy; dominance; hitech; hppc; supercomputer
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The new system, which is based on a microprocessor that has been designed and manufactured in China, is now expected later this year. A number of supercomputing industry scientists and engineers said that it was possible that the new machine would claim the title of world’s fastest.
1 posted on 06/01/2010 10:32:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

dang.. the Chinese designing such a fast chip? incredible!


2 posted on 06/01/2010 10:33:54 AM PDT by Ancient Drive (DRINK COFFEE! - Do Stupid Things Faster with More Energy!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Bill Gates & Microcrap working on ways to slow it down as we speak.


3 posted on 06/01/2010 10:34:52 AM PDT by norraad ("What light!">Blues Brothers)
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To: SeekAndFind
Amazing, yet it is the case that supercomputing has lost its shine in the USA since there is no business case for massive modeling of extremely complex systems.

Instead we have much more money and research pouring into web-server, networking, and database infrastructure which is generally composed of a workload spread across many lesser systems .

4 posted on 06/01/2010 10:36:24 AM PDT by ikka
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To: Ancient Drive

Yeah, but can they drive it???


5 posted on 06/01/2010 10:36:24 AM PDT by Zuben Elgenubi
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To: Ancient Drive

Do you really think they designed it? I bet if you looked closely you would see a bunch of patents which were violated (both software and hardware). I am not a computer guy, but I have experience with how they handle IP in the mobile equipment industry.


6 posted on 06/01/2010 10:36:38 AM PDT by exhaustguy
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To: SeekAndFind

But, after an hour, you want to run the data again...


7 posted on 06/01/2010 10:36:42 AM PDT by jessduntno (If someone calls me a racist I tell them, "you're just saying that because I'm white.")
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To: norraad

guess it’s not running windows...


8 posted on 06/01/2010 10:36:42 AM PDT by brivette
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To: SeekAndFind

R&D follows manufacturing. Who knew?

We are reaping the rewards of our own stupidity as a nation.

It’s going to get much worse.


9 posted on 06/01/2010 10:37:11 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (J. D. Hayworth, the next Senator, the Great State of Arizona - Sen. Poopdeck, Panama is calling...)
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To: SeekAndFind

Yup, it can pick one item from Column A, two from Column B and six from Column C in just a few seconds.

Simply amazing!

Wait! No MSG!


10 posted on 06/01/2010 10:38:22 AM PDT by RexBeach
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To: exhaustguy

oh I agree. I’m 100% sure they broke a couple of patents to get there.


11 posted on 06/01/2010 10:38:23 AM PDT by Ancient Drive (DRINK COFFEE! - Do Stupid Things Faster with More Energy!)
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To: SeekAndFind
1.27 petaflops — the equivalent of one thousand trillion

one thousand trillion
one million billion
one billion million
one trillion thousand

one quadrillion

Wonder why the writer chose that phrase?

12 posted on 06/01/2010 10:39:05 AM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: DoughtyOne

We keep ridiculing cheap and throw-away Chinese goods.

We forget that when it comes to matters of national security, the Chinese do not compromise on quality, reliability and safety.

We ignore them and their national will to challenge us at our peril.


13 posted on 06/01/2010 10:39:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: exhaustguy
Do you really think they designed it?

Let's just say for the sake of argument that they copied the technology... the next question comes to mind --- what's to stop them from going to the next stage -- actually innovating and improving on this technology ?

Just go to any insitution of higher learning in this country and even in Europe and count the number of Chinese enrolled in their technical programs -- engineering, software, physics, bio-technology, math, the sciences and you being to ask yourselves, how many of us wish to excel in these fields versus them...
15 posted on 06/01/2010 10:46:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Because cracking down on dissent online is so hard you need a supercomputer. Turns out they are handy for nuclear weapons modeling as well.

/johnny

16 posted on 06/01/2010 10:47:04 AM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: SeekAndFind
The Chinese are putting everything they have in getting the top spot. We still have over 1/2 the Supercomputers that exist in the world. It will be a long times before they have any kind of dominance in this field. I am certain if one were to look at these processors they have 'designed', you will notice that they look very similar to something Intel or AMD makes, only reversed-engineered. The Chinese don't have the R&D that we have. They can't invent their own stuff. They only copy what we have and put it in larger scale.

U.S. companies are far ahead. The next generation of tech is assuring our supercomputers will be over 100 times faster in 8 years than anything the Chinese came make now.
17 posted on 06/01/2010 10:49:17 AM PDT by lmr (God punishes Conservatives by making them argue with fools.)
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To: jessduntno

“But, after an hour, you want to run the data again...”

Lol at that.


18 posted on 06/01/2010 10:49:51 AM PDT by Texan Tory
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To: lmr

I can’t type on this laptop... Sorry for the errors.


19 posted on 06/01/2010 10:50:33 AM PDT by lmr (God punishes Conservatives by making them argue with fools.)
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To: exhaustguy
Do you really think they designed it?

Probably based on Loongson, which executes the MIPS ISA.

20 posted on 06/01/2010 10:51:23 AM PDT by Vroomfondel
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