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China Building Linux-Based 10 Teraflop Supercomputer
securitas writes "CNet Asia reports that China is building a 2000-processor supercomputer based on the AMD Opteron 64-bit CPU. The new supercomputer will run a Chinese-designed Linux operating system. Based on current standings, the resulting 10-teraflop machine will make it the third most powerful supercomputer in the world. The Red Grid project is being built by Dawning Information Industry and China's National Research Centre for Intelligent Computing Systems. The Red Grid/Dawning 4000A is expected to be complete by June 2004. But China has competition - weighing in at 40 teraflops, the Cray Red Storm AMD-based 10,000-Opteron supercomputer built for Sandia National Labs will become the supercomputer heavyweight next year. More at Infoworld , InternetNews and Yahoo."
What, no Itaniums? :-P
Now AMD, if you could only get your desktop solution out there for a nice price...
The big story should be about the air conditioning system for this baby.
Omnis amans amens
Urge to run L0pht Crack... Rising....
This should do a lot for AMD's credibility as a server processor manufacturer. According to the current top500 list, you have to go to number 84 to find an AMD based supercomputer. If these articles are correct, you'll soon have 2 in the top 5. That's quite a change of events.
-- Adam
Imagine a Beowulf...nevermind.
Imagine.. a cluster of coolers for this baby!
The inq have a story wondering if just the two mentioned super computers worth of opterons sold have allready outsold the itanics.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Seems it's a lot more complicated to build a network of 2000 boxes than it is to make a web page without broken img links (Link is from the c-net article)
cat
That's what the Three Gorges Dam was for all along. To cool this thing.
"Helping to opress 1/3rd of the earth population"
-The new supercomputer will run a Chinese-designed Linux operating system.
No. The new supercomputer will run a Linus-designed Linux operating system that has been heavily modified to suit the tastes of the Chinese. Counter to popular belief, the Chinese did not design Linux.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Holy crap! That's about 6,666 flops per Chinese citizen!
...does it run Linux????
battling out supercomputers with eleventy million terafloppies is like a modern day coldwar/space race. except with less fake pictures. and more flops.
Mmmmm flops.
If they'd used IPv6, would solve alot of problems!
If China Syndrome is when the core of a nuclear plant gets so hot that it starts to melt through the earth's core, theoretically towards China...
What is it called when hundreds of AMD CPU's get equally hot and start to melt through the earth's core, theoretically towards the US?
Maybe its just me...but it seems like there is increasing competition for the top supercomputer. Japan holds the top at the moment, and the US is home to the second most powerful...and now china is entering into the fray. Of course there undoubtely other countries besides the top 3 that are trying to earn a place as well. I wonder if India will be next?
Could you elaborate? How is it on topic?
Maybe then can start simulating nuclear test blasts instead of actually conducting them.
Embed some "extra" code to help them out...
The new supercomputer will run a Chinese-designed Linux operating system.
;)
I thought Torvalds comes from Finland?
Or are some obscure RMS ancestors chineese?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I can't imagine what their licensing fee will be, what's the licensing fee for an equivalent machine running openserver? There must be some out there since all these enterprise capabilities came straight from the heart of SCO.
Do you have ESP?
Perhaps the most interesting part of this is to learn whether vast numbers of simple computers (Seti et al) scale better or worse than vast numbers of clustered computers (Google et al).
does it have humor?
And then South Africa. Followed by Sweden or Finland, Costa Rica, and Andorra. Before you know it, the Vatican City will have the 17th fastest supercomputer in the world, running an OS founded by an avowed atheist.
Maybe irony is what makes us human. Is any other species on the planet this self-contradictory?
...did you feel the breeze as the parent post's joke passed over your head?
"Red Grid", "Red Storm" whatever happened to "Green Destiny"?
Think how many beads we going to need for this...
I suggest you read Slashdot
I think I can get Cray to make one for me afterwards. I mean, after they make one, another can't cost that much.. right?
The University of Kentucky is still doing interesting things with Athlons & Linux. Just about two weeks ago, a group there built KASY0, which they expect to set a new price/performance record at better than 1GFLOPS/$100. More about KASY0 here.
....Today, the /. readers dismissed as ridiculous the topic of the Brussel's beast. One of the main point in the discussion was the statement by several of the regular posters that no one builds "super"computers anymore...back to you Dave.....
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
Ever notice how Slashdot stories often have far too many links? Since the front page doesn't get the little [slashot.org]-style URL warnings, I'm always afraid of being linked to a certain .cx site or a disturbing picture of a girl... spewing.... something... This article was pretty good, though. it didn't link to easy-to-find pages like Google, Yahoo, IBM, Microsoft, etc.
Oh well, Slashdot, you are my friend!
- Population: sheer mass counts. If US has 1 genius in 1 million people, than we have 400 geniuses in the US. But China would have 1.100 which is quite an advantage.
- Education system: The US has a better starting position, but China is rapidly gaining. Chinese have thrown away all Mao anti-illectual rubbish and know to value knowledge these days.
- Traditions: The confucian traditions imply total devotion to work and society.
However, the US tradition imply total devotion to self interest and egoism. So, the Chinese society have much better chance to complete large scale and high effort projects. The US have problems there. Take e.g. Iraq we have our boys just a few months there, but already the press is whining that some of them are dying. Even worse the US economic system is based on these "values", so we can't change them without having our society collapse.
- Resources: China has many natural resources. Even more there are much resources in the neighboring countries. These are very weak, so China has just to blackmail or to conquer them to get the resources.
- Legal bonds: there is not much copyright and IP enforced in China. So free from all patent and IP bounds China's economics and science can develop much faster.
- Less restricted goverment: In China the goverment doesn't have to obey very much restrictions. So they don't have to spend so much money on their own people or to protect human rights.
The conclusion of this is that the US has very bad cards in the upcoming powergame with China. Instead of concentration on their nationalist isolational politics, the US should come back to their very own sources. So the US should join the EU as an equal partner and adopt the more efficient European legal system. I think they should urge minor European based countries like Canada or Australia to join. The combined of power of US, Europe and the others (1.5 Billion people 84 percent of world's economics). Could face the Asian challenge and win.Owner of a Mensa membership card.
I am wondering, is this a Linux distribution or is it a breakaway project? Some time ago there were similar stories about an Asian Linux. There have been grumblings from RedHat that the Chinese were not contributing towards the "Linus" Linux. Is Asia going a seperate way with OSS and if so can someone explain why this is happening? Thanks, Gerard
40 teraflops Cray Red Storm AMD-based 10,000-Opteron supercomputer built for Sandia National Labs
Just imaging how fast it could run Notepad, Solitare, or Minesweeper!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
obviously, b.
None of the links I bothered to click on even touched - as far as my skimming of the articles revealed - anything about why the chinese has opted for a variation on Linux, instead of one of the commercial unixes, Wondows (yeah, right) or something along those lines. Does it adapt better to this scale? Is it because it's essentially free (as in 'no licenses')? If it the reds fear of a backdoor in the system if they buy a commercial product?
Don't get me wrong, a supercomputer running on Linux is cool and all that, but I would like to know more about the logic that dictates the choice of OS in such an application. Suggestions?
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I thought we weren't supposed to export supercomputing technologies to China? When did that change?
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Its amazing that Intel processors actually consume more heat than AMD processors but yet are the target of repeated (and not funny) jokes about AMD processors being excessively hot
I wish people would stop pretending that an operating system adds to a computer's performance.
An operating system is overhead, and can only slow down your peak computing speed.
Imagine how fast they can crank out pirate copies of XP with that sumbitch...
hang brain.
Does this make Linus a communist or a terrorist?
All that power and they'd still only get around 20fps in Doom III.
yeah, that's our right as citizens of the good ol' US of A, nobody else's.
"Life is great; without it, you'd be dead." -Harmony Korine
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What are the odds China will release its modified GPL code to the rest of the world?
There's a lawsuit I'd love to see. Linus Torvalds/FSF vs. The People's Republic of China.
Well, do you want a bunch of loonies that hate you having the power to come over and kill you when they are in a bad mood?
If you still answer the same way, then you are either a fool or a lier.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... running dnetc clients to get into the number 1 position for rc5 cracking!
Could you imagine a beouwolf..... Ahh fuck it..
...is build a computer capable of withstanding a full slashdotting.
Well, do you want a bunch of loonies that hate you having the power to come over and kill you when they are in a bad mood?
One would say... 'If you have the "right" to do that, they should have the same "right"'...
KoalaBear33
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
what about seti from my understanding with all the computers that are running the seti project they should be the in the number 1 position. After all there has to be well into the thousands of computers running this and although they are not the fastest or useing every cpu cycle they have to be up there whan it comes to cpu power? does anyone have any fig. on what the combined cpu power of the seti project is?
In China the people don't have the opportunity to oppose the use of nuclear weapons if they wish to. A select few *unelected* men could pull the trigger if they get in a bad mood...
We don't want our enemies to have nukes... You don't see us worried about Israel with their nukes or France or Britain. Yes China still IS a communist country. wake up.
Could you imagine a shijing cluster of these?
First off, 10 TFLOPS peak only puts it at #6 or so.
Secondly, 10 TFLOPS is NOTHING. PS3 will achieve 1.5 TFLOPS peak by the end of 2005 - a cluster of 6 PS3s will kick shit through this Chinese iron. The same Cell technology will be available to IBM to build true supercomputers in the same timescale. To be in the process of building a 10 TFLOPS machine today is a joke.
Finally a SCO poster ;) I thought you guys had strict orders not to wander near slashdot.org ;)
KoalaBear33
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
In China the people don't have the opportunity to oppose the use of nuclear weapons if they wish to. A select few *unelected* men could pull the trigger if they get in a bad mood...
:(
Since when did the population come into the decision making? Are you telling me that USA consulted their population before deploying the atomic weapons in Japan?
Unelected may pull the trigger; but so do the elected...
I'll bet USA is more concerned about Isreal's nukes than China's. There have been a few concerns from US administration officials over the last few decades over Isreal. A religious fundamentalist in Isreal is more likely to cause a nuclear war than some Communist. Have you forgotten the lessons of the Cold War?
Of course, none of this matters to you... since you have already made up your "mind"
KoalaBear33
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
Well, yes Iraqi made a BIG mistake. They liked those "loonies".
Red Corner
When GWB claimed that he would use nuclear when he felt being bullied, I didn't see nobody stopped him.
So, new machines are built to aid in the development of faster, stronger, bigger and prettier nuclear weapons than we ever had before.
However, soon there will be noone left to bomb. Then, what are the machines good for?
The answer, of course, is seti@home! We need to start donating cycles from these computing monsters as soon as possible, to ensure that we find extraterrestrial life quickly, so that we do not run out of targets for the bombs.
May I propose, that all sub-number-1 machines on the top500 are dedicated to seti@home as quickly as possible, to ensure that the number-1 does not obsolete itself too soon.
a Beowulf cluster of 'em? :D
--
Interestingly, a large number (it might even be the majority) of the supercomputers are used for non-military applications, like scientific research, weather, geology, etc.
:)
I like the idea of donating these to SETI@home...
:) KoalaBear33, waiting patiently for First Contact
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
...but how much is that in comrades with adding machines?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I'd settle for a dual Opteron board with AGP: http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/hotline/20030 726/image/nge3.html
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Yeah, Israel has nukes. If Israel nukes the Palestinians, or Iran, or Syria, I don't think the US will care much. Yeah, it would suck for a lot of innocent civilians. On the other hand, it would kill an ASSLOAD of terrorists. That nuclear threat may very well prevent another war aimed at wiping Israel off the map, which is something the Islamic countries have tried in the past. Several times. China, on the other hand, has threatened first-strike us of their nukes on US cities. That's not a very friendly thing to say. Half of their missiles are pointed at us (I live in the United States). China is a threat. Israel is not. Enough said.
Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these super computers!!!!
I wonder what the interconnect between the nodes will be. Gigabit ethernet seems far too slow. There is Myrinet, Dolphin, and other HPC interconnects. 10Gb ethernet is still really expensive and there is only one NIC on the market (from Intel). InfiniBand would make a lot of sense...10 Gb, much cheaper than 10Gb Ethernet, much lower latency, and already supports MPI and TCP/IP offloaded sockets.
Of course maybe for systems this large, a special machine specific interconnect makes sense.
-- soldack
You can choose not to vote for Bush in the next election. The people of China can't choose to remove Jiabao from office. Checks and balances... It not be perfect, but a least they exist in the US
----
In Soviet Russia, the overlords welcome you!
Philip K. Dick, "Man in the High Castle"
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
thanks. damn, is there anything Philip K. Dick didn't think of?? :-)
The new supercomputer will run a Chinese-designed Linux operating system
I always knew that Linux was Communist, this just proves it.
Well, do you want a bunch of loonies that hate you having the power to come over and kill you when they are in a bad mood?
Nope, well leave that to the US army.
(my 2 cents worth)- I think Linux deployment is at a critical stage right now, legal challenges by SCO casting FUD around, stuff like this just gives the anti-linux entities more ammo
Considering the past statements made by MS execs re: linux ("communist"?) - e.g. "Look, the Chinese government is happy to use linux to power their weapons. American coders - mind you, american coders who are NOT working on Microsoft platforms - are happily contributing code day and night (when not wasting their time on /.) that will be used by the Chinese military. Shouldn't Congress be doing something about it?".
Has anyone done the Beowolf gag yet?
Stephen
"Don't write down to your readers, the only people less intelligent than you can't read" - Sign on Newspaper Office Wall
"Their attitude is shockingly different from the Russians who immigrated to the USA during the Soviet era." That is because China is shockingly different from USSR and from the image of an ultra evil state that the Western media has build up over the years. Are you telling me that you know more about China than people who have lived there for most of their lives? That you care more about the well beings of those people than themselves?
"By contrast, the Chinese immigrants feel that a Chinese supercomputer challenging the best American supercomputer is a wonderful thing." Please make sense! Are you saying that Chinese people should feel good about been left behind in technological advancements?
Of course China is no where near a model society for human right and personal freedom at its current state. It still needs much reform and breaking down of the current system to improve the lives of average Chinese citizen. But tell a real Chinese about your fabricated horror stories about the evilness of Chinese government and see how much their agree with you? When you find out about their disagreements with you, are you going to insist that they hold a false view of what is like to be a real Chinese and you are the true protector of Chinese human right?
It is ironic how some people of some Western countries, especially those who had grossly violated other people's human rights and freedom, through acts of forced opium trade, slavery, genocide, and centuries of aggressions and wars, quickly turned around to lecture to the same people whom they thoroughly oppressed, about the need for human rights and freedoms. Why Chinese need to have their own supercomputers? To avoid another Nanjing Massacre, to avoid another Unit 731, to avoid another era of been forced to allow its people to take deadly drugs at the points of gunships from drug smuggling empire who proclaim to hold a higher moral ground.
If you care at all about the well being of Chinese people, give Chinese people peace and time to develop. Did US become a championed of human right protector overnight? Although its constitution dictated that all human being should be treated equally, was that the practice of US until 1960s? Should another great power, if there was one, step in and
take over US at a time when brutal violation of human rights and freedoms took place in US, in an effort to help US citizens? Democracy is a great concept, so let Chinese people have a chance to develop towards that goal after centuries of chaos and war, instead of been forced to face yet more hostile foreign forces.
Funny, cause China is the only major nuclear power to declare a non first-strike policy. On the other hand, it is the threats of nuclear weapon, from both US and USSR, in 50s and 60s, that has pushed the development of Chinese nuclear program.
This is actually reply to antirename (556799).
No your simply wrong... ever since the p4 intel has always produced more heat but has provided better cooling solutions. All p4's come with heatspreaders and high quality heatsinks. AMD's haven't come out with a heat spreader as of yet (opterons have them though, and possibly the a64's) and their heatsinks are almost always worse then intel's.
Top intel processors produce more then 89 watts at full power while amd maxes around 70 watts. Intel is continuing the trend with their new prescott 3.6 ghz processor at around 119 watts.
Hmmm... Pie...
The only legal attack that US gov could take about this supercomputer would be urging China gov to recontribute the kernel code. As I know of, they already adopted linux (don't know if its kernel tho) to use them in China gov, but I didn't hear their change (mostly I18N I think) was patched back.
Without action, China will never patch back the code for this supercomputer spontaneously. The C|Net article toutes `National Pride' thing, but they would consider the kernel code as `National Property': that's Chinese line of thought.
They may have declared that. Who cares, though, if thier military has stated that they will nuke LA if the US interferes in a China/Taiwan conflict?
they don't hate me. they hate the way the US government is exploiting and/or destroying them, and i tend to agree. i believe in the right to bear arms, but i don't believe that right should be exclusive to my home country. the fact is, if they didn't have a reason to hate us, the weaponry would be a non-issue.
"Life is great; without it, you'd be dead." -Harmony Korine
They hate us personally and the freedoms we ( sort of ) still have.
True not ALL do, but the vast majority of them really hate our guts. Actually most countries are like that, except the truely devloped ones like Brittian and Russia.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The US hasn't performed live nuclear tests in quite a while (20 years?). There are two reasons why sims aren't enough: 1) They are based on theories that don't always match reality and 2) they cannot simulate *everything*.
:)
Don't get me wrong, theories and simulations are great for preliminary work, but in the end you have to test it to be sure. On the wall over my monitor right now is a board from the Cray 1-S/1000, used at Kirtland AFB in 1980 for blast effects sims.
Besides, the world could use a good 10-30 megaton test every decade or so. It would give the media a chance to remind everyone just how dangerous and powerful they are. Good photo op, too.
- Hey, John, imagine a...
- Shut up!
- beowulf..
- I won't say it twice!
- cluster...
- *bang*
I am surprised no one has mentioned this:
http://phys.columbia.edu/~cqft/qcdoc/qcdoc.htm
it seems more impressive, expecially considering the communication speed between processors
Im so appalled by the ease in which you dismiss all that died on 9/11, beacuse you view them as 'wealthy fops'.
The individuals who died were people, trying to make a living to support their family when they were wiped out of existance by some lunatic that hated ALL Americans... beacuse of what we have, beacuse what our forefathers sacrificed to reach this point, and the sacrifices we have made since then to retain it.
People like you make me sick. You dont deserve to live in america
---- Booth was a patriot ----
When are you people going to ever realize it? Greater unstability in the Middle East will actually hurt USA more than anything else. This is what has been happening for years. If Isreal nukes other countries, it will create MORE terrorists. Sure you might get rid of a few thousand in the process, but it will create far more...
KoalaBear33
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
So "sky" is "tian". How is "net" in Chinese?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
...bamboo scaffolding can go up to ten stories high!
Chinux?
It's all fine and well to pound the drum of Chinese Nationalism, but please, can't you cite instances of Western Imperialism newer than the 'gunboat diplomacy' of the 19th Century British?
Or is that the level of injustice that the Chinese government is barely superior to??
A Good Intro to NetBS
would sure make for a happy Chinese counterstrike clan.
Subject says it all...
I don't think I've laughed that much at any comment posted to slashdot.
Then again it is 5:30AM and I'm tired, so that might have something to do with it.
Either way: LOL
there is no gravity at the core (mayor flaw in the else-wise very good movie "the Core").
... yeah yeah aerodynamics ...
if this stuff would melt towards the core it would stop there!
if you could/would dig a well thru the earth's core and out the other side and would then jump into it, you would pendel from one side to the other infinitely
Yes I know that burgers kill more people then terrorists in MY country, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to eat healthy. ( to extrapolate on your ludicrous example ).
There is this concept of 'intent'. The people flipping that burger ( that you have a CHOICE on if you eat or not ) doesn't want to kill you because of your freedoms. However the terrorist does.
Totally different concept.
Live and forget? That is a good way to get yourself killed. they NEVER forget, they only go into hiding until the next opportunity.
All of their kind should all be wiped out. Completely, nothing held back, no 'politically correct maneuvers'. Death. Simple as that..
( oh, and anyone that stands in our way to that objective too.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
and you said i was insensitive, you're calling for genocide.
"Life is great; without it, you'd be dead." -Harmony Korine
But only of the dangerous undesireables. So it really doesnt count.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Here are 2 points in reply to your comment:
1. The Opium war was the just the start, not the end to a long series foreign aggression that lasted well into 1960s when China had to fight border war with USSR over its island in northern Manchuria. Britain was just one of the imperial powers. Countries that had aggressively pursued imperialism in China also included Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Russia, Spain, and USA to various degrees. Till today, Russia still holds huge quantity of lands in what was original part of northern Manchuria. Japan still holds islands off the Chinese coast that it invaded during WWII. Perhaps you would feel better if I removed the word "Western" in my original post to include Japan which was probably the most recent and barbaric of all? It does not however change my argument at all. I would like to comment that I admire countries such as Britain and Germany for having the courage to face the past in an effort to move on to a better future.
2. You are missing the point of my examples. I'm certainly not trying to use these examples as the standards to measure the current Chinese government against and to point fingers to say, "See? We are much better than that!", because it is not much to begin with. Instead, I was trying to show the long processes of obtaining Democracy and true recognition for human rights. If it took so long for other countries to do so, why be so quick to attack China in transforming the largest population on earth with one of the longest traditions to a modern Democracy without having your facts straight? Do you truly believe that been openly hostile encourage openness and reform?
I guess I really have a 3rd point to your reply, what I stated were merely comments made from a perspective with Chinese interests in mind. If that can be called Nationalism, then what do you call some of the comments in this thread? Racism? Imperialism?
What comes around goes around. It is your kind of mentality that is creating more and more unfriendly feelings toward US. It is a self fulfiling prophecy. In fact, I think US needs to have a constant enemy to fight against, if there is no one, fabricate one. You don't think all those nukes and biological and chemical weapons of US are setting in storage without have been targetted to specific countries?
...with about $40k for a 1-teraflop array. Unfortunately, our local RealShities paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, does not have the article in the archives. It appeared in Monday's edition. A 128-machine Linux array built largely by volunteers, for $40k [pizza included].
It appears that some moderators have an agenda. Why does criticism of Chinese nationals or China automatically qualify an article to be modded down? There are numerous articles that criticize America and Americans, yet they are not modded down.
> If it took so long for other countries to do so, why be so quick to attack China in transforming the largest population on earth with one of the longest traditions to a modern Democracy without having your facts straight?
I find this line of reasoning that western countries have had "more time" than the old world countries (like China and India) to develop into human rights respecting societies, to be totally bogus. Countries such an China and India have been "civilized" for more than 5000 years when most of modern day Europe was very uncivilized. In fact, if these old countries had not screwed their own people for thousands of years, they would/should have been the flag-bearer of human rights and teaching the Europeans about that. What prevented the Chinese from becoming a full fledged democracy by, say, 500 AD ? Definitely, not the westerners.
The bottom line is that the old world always tries to put the blame of their backwardness on only one of the contributing factors (western exploitation) while trying to cover up the horrible exploitive nature of their own societies. As they say, with friends like that who needs enemies ? Almost always, the colonial powers (and their modern day neo-colonial counterparts) have made use of the already existing exploitive infrastructure in these countries to their own advantage. Basically, the "external exploiters" have always been aided willingly/unwillingly by "internal exploiters". And these "internal exploiters" have always been an integral part of these old societies for a few thousand years. Why deny that ?
You old boys screwed yourselves long before the new parasites hit you. So grow up and and destroy the demons within before blaming the demons without.
Its trolling at best since it makes it appear as if a supercomputer in China is the same as a "death to America" anthrax package. If the Chinese can build a supercomputer, so be it. People are free to advance technologically anywhere in the world. I would understand if the criticism is about China blowing money on expensive machines when its people are going hungry but thats not what the stupid post is about. In any case, I know of US cities where the govt builds football statiums to satisfy powerful interests while closing down schools because of lack of money. So, who's gonna blame whom ?