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[ExtremeTech] China, already dominant in supercomputers, shoots for an exascale prototype in 2017

4K views 35 replies 17 participants last post by  DNMock 
#1 ·
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Back in June, China debuted the world's fastest supercomputer, the Sunway TaihuLight (pictured), with a Linpack benchmark result of 93 petaflop/s. That machine contains 40,960 locally developed ShenWei processors, each with 260 cores and roughly comparable with Intel's Knight's Landing Xeon Phi CPU. China also developed a 136GB/sec memory controller and custom interconnect that delivers 16GB/sec of peak bandwidth between nodes.


Now China is working on a prototype exascale (1,000-petaflop) system that it aims to complete by the end of this year, according to state media. An exascale computer is capable of a quintillion calculations per second, and could deliver vast dividends in deep learning and big data across a variety of disciplines as varied as nuclear test research, code breaking, and weather forecasting.
Looks like Big brother got a competition in the field.
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#3 ·
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Originally Posted by PostalTwinkie View Post

FTFY.

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Believe me I had thought of that before writing. But I couldn't do so because China's super computer is based on home grown CPUs and so must be the BIOS indeed. Why would anybody leave x86/IBM and compatible BIOS which are made under the US supervision if you plan on being a partner in that field.
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#5 ·
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Originally Posted by sumitlian View Post

Believe me I had thought of that before writing. But I couldn't do so because China's super computer is based on home grown CPUs and so must be the BIOS indeed. Why would anybody leave x86/IBM and compatible BIOS which are made under the US supervision if you plan on being a partner in that field.
tongue.gif
More leverage to the value of the information you hold in knowing that they don't have it or can get to it.
 
#6 ·
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China also developed a 136GB/sec memory controller...
*heavy breathing*
 
#8 ·
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Originally Posted by lombardsoup View Post

-Smart enough to build world's fastest supercomputer
-Can't figure out how to solve own nation's smog problem

One is a small group of people throwing a lot of money at the problem, the other is fundamentally changing a lifestyle of an entire population. The former is far easier to do than the latter.
 
#9 ·
If this turns out to be anything like the Tianhe-2 it's going to be one spectacular fail. Tianhe-2 has a downtime of 40%, which has caused my friend to buy his own servers (second hand) because his projects kept failing thanks to the server constantly crashing.
 
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#10 ·
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Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

If this turns out to be anything like the Tianhe-2 it's going to be one spectacular fail. Tianhe-2 has a downtime of 40%, which has caused my friend to buy his own servers (second hand) because his projects kept failing thanks to the server constantly crashing.
Wow. That's absolutely unacceptable in a work environment.
 
#11 ·
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Originally Posted by lombardsoup View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

If this turns out to be anything like the Tianhe-2 it's going to be one spectacular fail. Tianhe-2 has a downtime of 40%, which has caused my friend to buy his own servers (second hand) because his projects kept failing thanks to the server constantly crashing.
Wow. That's absolutely unacceptable in a work environment.
My friend, whose field of expertise is DNA and DNA reconstruction, couldn't believe his department had been allocated a few nodes of the Tianhe-2, he was so excited. That is until he had to go out and buy his own blades lol. You can't imagine how furious he was.
 
#12 ·
Well.... we don't really know what the NSA has.. I'm sure the classified puters' are likely faster.

The cost of a terrorist attack is far in excess of a giant computer to intrude privacy and big-brother people.

Sigh.. the cost of privacy .. sigh........ I'm an old guy.. freedom and these ideologies seem important to young people..

But when you get older, you'd see, people don't need privacy, what people need is Less violence, 3 meals and some sleep..

All of that emotionally charged running at young age.. it just wasn't productive
 
#13 ·
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Originally Posted by tp4tissue View Post

Well.... we don't really know what the NSA has.. I'm sure the classified puters' are likely faster.

The cost of a terrorist attack is far in excess of a giant computer to intrude privacy and big-brother people.

Sigh.. the cost of privacy .. sigh........ I'm an old guy.. freedom and these ideologies seem important to young people..

But when you get older, you'd see, people don't need privacy, what people need is Less violence, 3 meals and some sleep..

All of that emotionally charged running at young age.. it just wasn't productive
And plenty of young people would rather walk the same road and see if they reach to the same conclusion for themselves.
But let us not digress.

Why is the quote about an irrelevant part of the article?
Quote:
Now China is working on a prototype exascale (1,000-petaflop) system that it aims to complete by the end of this year, according to state media. An exascale computer is capable of a quintillion calculations per second, and could deliver vast dividends in deep learning and big data across a variety of disciplines as varied as nuclear test research, code breaking, and weather forecasting.

"A complete computing system of the exascale supercomputer and its applications can only be expected in 2020, and will be 200 times more powerful than the country's first petaflop computer Tianhe-1, recognized as the world's fastest in 2010," said Zhang Ting, an application engineer at Tianjin's National Super Computer Center, to Xinhua news agency (via AFP).
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by tp4tissue View Post

Well.... we don't really know what the NSA has.. I'm sure the classified puters' are likely faster.

The cost of a terrorist attack is far in excess of a giant computer to intrude privacy and big-brother people.

Sigh.. the cost of privacy .. sigh........ I'm an old guy.. freedom and these ideologies seem important to young people..

But when you get older, you'd see, people don't need privacy, what people need is Less violence, 3 meals and some sleep..

All of that emotionally charged running at young age.. it just wasn't productive
Do you use curtains? Do you like people staring at your phone while you're using it? Do you like people searching through your pockets?
 
#15 ·
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Originally Posted by tp4tissue View Post

Well.... we don't really know what the NSA has.. I'm sure the classified puters' are likely faster.
I'd be willing to bet you 10 bucks to a donut as many times over as you want that the U.S. alone has 4 or 5 classified systems faster already, let alone the rest of the world.
 
#16 ·
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Originally Posted by DNMock View Post

I'd be willing to bet you 10 bucks to a donut as many times over as you want that the U.S. alone has 4 or 5 classified systems faster already, let alone the rest of the world.
It has been pretty well known that the U.S. Government has done a lot of work on Quantum Computing, and likely has something a few factors more powerful than what D-Wave has, for comparison. Even Microsoft and Google were able to keep advanced systems hidden from public and investor view for a number of years in terms of HoloLens and AI advancements.

It has also been mentioned before, but many examples in life have shown the "20 Year Rule" to be true in a lot of areas. The rule is that whatever the Government is openly acknowledging now as a (former) classified project/technology is at least 20 years old. Really in terms of a lot of technology advancements and systems; avionics, computing, etc.

In other words; Uncle Sam gets all the really cool toys before we even know about them!
 
#17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by tp4tissue View Post

Well.... we don't really know what the NSA has.. I'm sure the classified puters' are likely faster.

The cost of a terrorist attack is far in excess of a giant computer to intrude privacy and big-brother people.

Sigh.. the cost of privacy .. sigh........ I'm an old guy.. freedom and these ideologies seem important to young people..

But when you get older, you'd see, people don't need privacy, what people need is Less violence, 3 meals and some sleep..

All of that emotionally charged running at young age.. it just wasn't productive
Best argument for a police state ever.
 
#18 ·
It might reach that speed...once. I heard the China supercomputers are not all that reliable. Kind of like everything else they make.
 
#19 ·
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Originally Posted by TheBlindDeafMute View Post

It might reach that speed...once. I heard the China supercomputers are not all that reliable. Kind of like everything else they make.
Considering 85% of all products are made in China I would say you are definitely right, better throw your clothing away and go naked.
 
#20 ·
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Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

My friend, whose field of expertise is DNA and DNA reconstruction, couldn't believe his department had been allocated a few nodes of the Tianhe-2, he was so excited. That is until he had to go out and buy his own blades lol. You can't imagine how furious he was.
That's a Stuporcomputer.
But can it run Crysis?
 
#21 ·
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Originally Posted by The Robot View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

My friend, whose field of expertise is DNA and DNA reconstruction, couldn't believe his department had been allocated a few nodes of the Tianhe-2, he was so excited. That is until he had to go out and buy his own blades lol. You can't imagine how furious he was.
That's a Stuporcomputer.
But can it run Crysis?
I'm sure it can but who wants to run Crysis on a computer that constantly crashes?

I don't know whether the crashing is due to Kylin (the Linux that runs on the Tianhe-2), interconnects, cooling or some other problem but whatever it is Tianhe-2 is only good for showing off, nothing else as I wouldn't even run Mine Sweeper on it.
 
#22 ·
im not sure anyone is investing money in supercomputers right now... seriously just give it a few more years and quantum should be polished enough, THEN have your government through several million at a superquantum computer. yawnfest 2017
 
#23 ·
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Originally Posted by caenlen View Post

im not sure anyone is investing money in supercomputers right now... seriously just give it a few more years and quantum should be polished enough, THEN have your government through several million at a superquantum computer. yawnfest 2017
This has been said for decades and we're still not close to actually utilising quantum computing other than for experimentation and research.
 
#25 ·
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Originally Posted by tp4tissue View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

Do you use curtains? Do you like people staring at your phone while you're using it? Do you like people searching through your pockets?
Nope. I walk out the front porch, one ball hanging out my boxers with a beer and my laptop..

Once you get to my age.. Privacy.. what is that..... ?
HAHA

Considering all the lies and propaganda spread about North Korea, why not live there? You want the world to be like that anyway.
 
#26 ·
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Originally Posted by caenlen View Post

im not sure anyone is investing money in supercomputers right now... seriously just give it a few more years and quantum should be polished enough, THEN have your government through several million at a superquantum computer. yawnfest 2017
Many of the possible applications have no overlap. What you're suggesting is like buying a console for office work.
 
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