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Japan Builds World's Fastest Computer

Posted by michael on from the rice-rocket dept.

claylikethemud writes "The New York Times reports that Japan has built the world's most powerful supercomputer from "640 specialized nodes that are in turn composed of 5,104" NEC processors. The machine boasts the computing power equivalent to the 20 fastest American supercomputers combined, and with a top speed of 35.6 teraflops, outpaces the next fastest machine, the ASCI White Pacific, by more than factor of five. Applications include climate modeling, global warming prediction, and other non-weapons research."

8 of 505 comments (clear)

  1. Did anyone see this coming? by saihung · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With all of the supercomputer posts on /. recently, I've seen a lot of talk about the various ASCI projects in the works by IBM and others. No one even mentioned this before. I'm glad to see that someone is building supercomputers for reasons other than nuclear weapons research though.

    1. Re:Did anyone see this coming? by JabberWokky · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I'm glad to see that someone is building supercomputers for reasons other than nuclear weapons research though.

      For some reason Japan isn't all that keen on nuclear weapons.

      --
      Evan

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  2. So when does a computer... by Bnonn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...become a huge goddamned distributed-network-in-a-room?

  3. Re:US:bombs vs. Japan: environment by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What surprises me is that this is the first we (Slashdot readers) have heard about it. There have been several headlines saying 'new supercomputer planned' with a story 'it will be quite fast, and finished in 2004'... but this new world's-fastest-computer just suddenly appeared without being preannounced.

    Are any of the supercomputer projects in the pipeline expected to be faster than this?

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  4. Re:Non Weapon research?? by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The Japanese are only able to maintain a defensive force, not an army, so even if it was weapons research, it would only be for use in self defense.
    Well, American policy has always been that it's nukes are purely defensive weapons (like the Peacekeepers) so the argument could be made..... Oh, I forgot. What's OK for America isn't OK for any other country.
    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  5. Re:US:bombs vs. Japan: environment by macshit · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That is probably why they don't have a military (I think they now have a token military but not a real one)



    Actually, Japan has one of the largest military budgets in the world. They call their military the `Self Defense Forces', but it's the real thing, with big ships, tanks, fighter jets, and all that good stuff. No nukes though.

    --
    We live, as we dream -- alone....
  6. Re:US:bombs vs. Japan: environment by fr2asbury · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The US military budget is SO high, because when we go to war, we want to destroy weapons and remove evil doers with surgical precision. All the while making the locals love the US.
    The US ideally would go to war where only weapons ould be destroyed and noone would get killed.
    To acieve this goal our weapons have to be extremely high tech.
    Oddly enough it's value of all human life, both ours and the people in the region we're fighting that makes our budget so huge.

    Cheers,

    Jonathan

  7. Re:US:bombs vs. Japan: environment by CokeBear · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Canadians of course!
    You never know when some pesky Canadians on a training exercise in Afganistan will suddenly turn their weapons on an American F16.

    --
    Reality has a liberal bias