China's Tianhe-1A takes supercomputer crown from US
Tianhe-1A capable of sustained computing of 2.507 petaflops – 1.4 times
faster than Cray XT5 Jaguar
*
(http://uk.buzz.yahoo.com/buzz?publisherurn=the_guardian665&targetUrl=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/28/china-tianhe-1a-fastest-
supercomputer&summary=<p>Tianhe-1A+capable+of+sustained+computing+of+2.507+p
etaflops++–+1.4+times+faster+than+Cray+XT5+Jaguar</p>&headline= China's
Tianhe-1A takes supercomputer crown from US | Technology | The Guardian)
* _Tania Branigan_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/taniabranigan)
in Beijing and agencies
* _guardian.co.uk_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/) , Thursday 28 October
2010
_China_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china) has overtaken the US as
home of the world's fastest supercomputer. Tianhe-1A, named for the Milky
Way, is capable of sustained _computing_
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/computing) of 2.507 petaflops –
equivalent to 2,507 trillion calculations
each second.
The US scientist who maintains the international rankings visited it last
week and said he believed it was 1.4 times faster than the former number
one, the Cray XT5 Jaguar in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. That topped the list in June
with a rate of 1.75 petaflops.
The US is home to more than half of the world's top 500 supercomputers.
China had 24 in the last list, but has pumped billions of pounds into
developing its computational ability in recent years. The machines are used
for
everything from modelling climate change and studying the beginnings of the
universe to assisting aeroplane design.
Housed in the northern port city of Tianjin, near Beijing, Tianhe-1A was
developed by the National University of Defence Technology. The system was
built from thousands of chips made by US firms – Intel and Nvidia – but
domestic researchers developed the networking technology that allows
information to be exchanged between servers at extraordinary speeds.
Tianjin's weather bureau and the National Offshore Oil Corporation data
centre are already using it for trial projects. "It can also serve the
animation industry and bio-medical research," Liu Guangming, director of the
National Centre for Supercomputing, _told China Daily_
(http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-10/28/content_11472540.htm) .
Tianhe-1A was in seventh place in the last rankings. Its domestic rival
Nebulae, housed in Shenzhen, was at that time ranked second, capable of
sustained computing of 1.271 petaflops.
The next set of rankings is due next week, but Jack Dongarra, the
University of Tennessee computer scientist who oversees them, _told the New
York
Times_
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/technology/28compute.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Tianhe-1&st=cse)
that Tianhe-1 "blows away the existing number one".
Wu-chun Feng, a supercomputing expert and professor at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, told the NYT: "What is scary about this is
that the US dominance in high-performance computing is at risk. One could
argue that this hits the foundation of our economic future."
Professor Arthur Trew, of Edinburgh University, who oversees the UK's
_HECToR supercomputer_
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/02/computing.climatechange) ,
said the Sino-American battle to have the fastest
device was not particularly significant. "They are showing off with big
machines
– fine. It's the underlying message that is important. The fact they are
pumping this kind of money into building these machines in general is far
more important … Europe is being left behind," he said.
"Having the computer is only half the battle. You have to use it, use it
sensibly, and actually produce results. That requires software and brains and
a lot of investment on top of the machine."
Trew added: "The number of software engineers that China is turning out and
putting into centres dwarfs anything we are doing in the west. I remember
going to Shanghai and being astounded by the number of people they had –
hundreds. Edinburgh is one of the largest centres in Europe and we have got
100."
Essentially, supercomputers allow research that could not otherwise be done
because it involves calculations too complex to solve by other means or
where an experiment cannot be carried out.
"Where you have complexity and cannot experiment – because a system is too
large or small, or [the effect] happens too quickly or slowly, or it is
just too expensive – you have to simulate it … The range of applications is
growing and growing," said Trew.
The NYT calculated that Tianhe-1 could perform mathematical operations
about 29m times faster than one of the earliest supercomputers, built in 1976.
Scientists in the US are already contemplating _exascale computing_
(http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/02/exascale_computing) –
aiming to develop devices capable of performing a million trillion
calculations
a second.
• This article was amended on 29 October 2010. The original referred to
petaflops per second. This has been corrected.
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