Slashdot Mirror
China to Crack Supercomputer Top Ten List
jsse writes "ComputerWorld (Hong Kong) has an article about Chinese Academy of Sciences building a supercomputer which has been shown in benchmark tests to process up to 10 trillion floating-point operations per second (TFLOPS) and is expected to take a spot on the list of the world's ten most powerful supercomputers for the first time. The computer is a cluster of 2,560 Opteron 800 series processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) contained in 640 nodes of four processors each. AMD has announced the project last year when the cluster was building."
So what happened to that dragon cpu chip they were working on?
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
I glanced through the article quickly and I see that it doesn't mention what use the computer will be put to. For some reason, I doubt it will be used to model climate change... bets they want to use the cycles to crunch some nuclear weapons simulations?
I think maybe we should hold off on asking it "why 42?"
This is probably the intended use :)
If they could just smooth over the human rights people
As you can see, this is nothing new for China.
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
Would the Chinese need a computer capable of running Longhorn?
Oh well, More power to them!
Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
Well, why should the United States be the sole keeper of Weapons of Mass Destruction? History has shown that we aren't exactly the most trustworthy of these things. Just exactly what do you suppose they are developing at Fort Mead? Vaccines to save the world?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
[Insert unecessary comparison between this and the G5 cluster at Virginia Tech].
The computer's being created by Dawning Information Industry Co. (US Site).
According to their company profile,
They seem to serve a lot of different customers, but I have a feeling the government will be making use of this baby.
400 don't exist. There are only 1xx, 2xx and 8xx.
Since when does "exceedingly liberal"==Communist?
Stick Men
will happen from our politicians in the US. My understanding is that the new cluster being built at Oak Ridge is really intended to somewhat compete with the Earth Simulator cluster in Japan. Granted, I don't think it is intended to surpass it but still I just get the feeling that a lot of the supercomputer projects being supported by Congress are political in nature and not really scientific. Now that the Chinese will possibly enter the top 10, that should get the politicos all riled up.
at least they are free of Warcrimes unlike the USA (no matter how much rummy bleats)
do you see how much damage the current administration has done ?, human rights violations by USA was 5 years ago unthinkable, now they are in the same club as those "communist" countries, nice company
the damage done to USA's credibility will take 100's of years to repair , look how long slavery took. you lost the terrorists won and what was a free country has become a facist theocracy that tortures, murders and treats humans with contempt
that my friends what is going to be written into history
Now the chinese can caluclate how many communists it really takes to screw in a lightbulb....
(my estimate is the entire chinese population, because if only one person screws it in, then that's just not sharing with others, is it?)
Man, I can't stand it when that list goes down from beeing hax0red...
China was never really communist, and they aren't even playing at it anymore. Witness the recent vote by the parliment to reinstate private property rights and which gives some basic human rights back to the people. China is already such a huge economic engine that it has raised world steel prices by between 50 and 100% since the beginning of this year. Other metals such as Zinc have seen nearly 200% rises! The scary part for the developed countries is that concievably China could grow at this rate for 100 years and still not have their entire population up to our current standard of living!
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
global warming has significantly increased
"China was never really communist, and they aren't even playing at it anymore."
And this, to a large degree, where the Sino-Soviet split came from. While the Soviet Union claimed that it had already gotten past capitalism and was now working from socialism to communism, China never made this claim. Ideologically, they claimed that class struggle was to continue in China and that there would be a ruling class and an antagonistic serving class, which the Soviet Union claimed was impossible after revolution. This difference in ideologies allowed China to carry out a lot of "capitalist" reform by simply pointing out to their notion that, until the world-economy was a socialsit one, it was futile to try not to be capitalist in some senses.
The best part is that in Australia, the "Liberal" party is the mainstream *conservative* ie. right-wing party. John Howard our PM, who is ideological and personal best buddies with your President Bush (eg. he just banned gay marriage) is the leader of the Liberal party. Which I think just blows the contention that liberal==left-wing.
Also, a side note. How much extra computing "power" is gained by adding an extra machine to a cluster? For example, I have about 7 or 8 pentiums (most are 166's, there is a 133 and a 200) sitting on the floor collecting dust. If I hooked them all up together, what would the usefulness be? Could I compile programs quicker? Would a cluster make a good web server, jps server? I know my PIII500 can drag with tomcat at times when crunching jsp.
I am glad china is investing money in technology. With all the people they have living there, they could become a major technolohy hub. Look at what Japan did in the 1980's with manufacturing. Imagine all the cheap(er) products we could have on the market. It all starts with R&D. Even the old "star wars" spending from the 1980's has proven useful in new products in ways not imagined back then.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
China keeps showing more and more signs that it wants to be a big player in the world despite being communist. If they could just smooth over the human rights people (I suppose they should actually improve the human rights thing in general), they could very well become a very important figure in the world economy (not that they're not already).
... for everything.
China has the largest population on the planet with 1.3+ Billion people. The USA, including all states, protectorates, territories and New Jersey, is not quite 300 million (2000 census). That would make China four times the size in population. But you don't think they're very important.
News Flash: With only the most minor of exceptions, the governments of the world obviously don't care about China's human rights policies. Even the US, under the Clinton administration, gave in. Why? Because China already IS an economic power.
Do you stand in front of mountain and insist that it come to you? Think of economic power in terms of kinetic energy. KE = 0.5 * mass * velocity^2. Right now, China's economy doesn't have much velocity, but it sure as hell has mass. Let's apply that to the most fundamental priciple of economics: Supply and Demand. When demand rises while supply stays the same or goes down, price rises. China is untapped demand potential. That demand potential is unmatched. And as that demand changes from potential to realized, we'll all pay more
at least they are free of Warcrimes unlike the USA
Sure, why go to war when you have a billion of your own people to slaughter brutally?
There are no absolutes in this game, but you can't say that China is better than the US, just because they don't have a few very horrible incidents that are currently blown up in the media.
US is considered a resonable country, human rights wise. China is not even close to that yet. Yes, getting better, but it is still only 15 years ago the military opened fire on civilians in the centre of Beijing.
So, really, you need to take your anonymous self-rightious preaching elsewhere.
The US doesn't want to annex its nearest neighbor by force or failing that, bomb them into submission.
Iraq.
The US isn't propping up Stalinist dictatorships that want nukes.
G. W. Bush already has nukes, and is working on taking all your freedoms. And how many "Stalinist dictatorships" has the U.S. put in power over the years? Castro? Sadam (sp?)?
The US has more than one political party.
Two is not much bigger than one. How different are they really? They are mostly the same except for a few distinguishing details. If a third party wanted to run, how long would it take for them to have a realistic shot?
The US doesn't arrest people in peaceful demonstrations and stick them in prison camps for 10 years at a time.
Prisoners from Afganistan. These are classified as "non-combatants" by the U.S. government. They are held with no trial, and are not POWs. And let's not forget about "free Kevin," held for (was it) 4 years without trial, and the only reason that he got out was because he agreed to a plea bargain imposed by the prosecutor.
The US doesn't think it owns Tibet.
Iraq.
The US doesn't tell the religious to register with the state or else.
Any of the government databases that track "undesirables"; members of the comunist party (or is that still illegal?), people of mid-east descent....
I take it china's no longer on the list of countries we're not allowed to sell supercomputers too.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If only that were true. On the scale of bad things that people do to one another, the Abu Ghraib incidents are such small potatoes that, 10 years from now, you won't be able to find any significant number of people who'll cite the Abu Ghraib torture as even one of the top ten reasons they hate the US.
As for the UN, it's hard to take anything they say seriously when they selected Libya to chair the United Nations Commission on Human Rights...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
*AHEM* Tibet *AHEM*.
You also might want to read up on the Chinese treatment of POWs during the Korean Conflict. Made the Iraqi prison look like a Sunday School.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The countries from top 10 are: 1. Japan 2. USA 3. USA 4. USA 5. USA 6. USA 7. USA 8. USA 9. USA 10. USA and the top 10 countries in the list with (highest rank) are: 1. Japan (1) 2. USA (2) 3. China (14) 4. France (15) 5. UK (16) 6. South Korea (22) 7. Canada (29) 8. Germany (31) 9. Netherlands (41) 10. New Zealand (44)
Seriously though, most countries don't have a very clean record, including China. Being involved in so many conflicts around the world, the US is hardly at the bottom of the barrel despite some incidents. What's really hurt the US is that they've been sanctimonious.
Being a thug and silently suppressing that is in many ways better than being a thug and claiming to be a saint. That's what hit the US full force. Compared to most countries of the world, the US is still a quite civilized one. But I don't think it'll ever regain the position as the "shining beacon of freedom and democracy" it once was.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Since when does "exceedingly liberal"==Communist?
Since when we now strike first for peace.
Since when our oldest international ally (France) became our biggest enemy.
Since when disagreeing with your government makes you a traitor.
Since one old sarin gas shell becomes a nation killer... and proof of WMD.
And especially since the media has become "fair and balanced."
Or the short answer:
Since when does "exceedingly liberal"==Communist?
Oh, about since late November 2004.
Yeah, Australia's always got things wrong. I hear your toilet water doesn't even swirl the right way.
Some spooks and US special forces and their allies, the "northern alliance" opium growers, killed 3,000 prisoners of war in afghanistan by locking them in almost air tight shipping containers and leaving them sit in the hot sun for days, then machine gunned whomever lived through it. It's on google, you can go find it yourself. There's some war crimes researchers investigating it now, digging up the mass graves, etc.
If you really look, you can find a long string of abuses by the US military going all the way back to the civil war, including all the outright genocide committed on the Indians here.
Their hands are just as dirty as anyone elses. Perhaps you have never heard the term "free fire zone"? Go find some actual nam combat vets and talk to them off the record, Hardly any of them WON'T have abuse/rape/torture stories. You might even see pictures, millions of them were taken and brought back to the US. Of course, in public or on the net on forums you won't read it much,because guys just don't freely admit to raping 12 year old girls or shooting prisoners or throwing them out of helicopters or dropping willie peter on tied up groups of prisoners,because they are all middle aged now with kids in colege and are local "respectable" business people and etc, but in meatspace if you talk to a lot of them,like I said, off the record, you'll hear some quite interesting stories. Combat and warzones are never john wayne-ish, that does not exist in real life. And it's the same with brit troops, french, russians, aussies, you name it. Warcrimes are NOT rare, or "confined to a few bad apples", and they never have been. There have been a lot of them committed in iraq so far, you'll just have to admit it, the evidence is overwhelming. The red cross already estimates the number of civilian deaths to be in the thousands, so I don't know how much has to occur before it's classed as a war crime.
As to china, if it was up to me, we would have never traded so much as a pair of chopsticks with those goons. They killed millions of their own people, they still run concentration camps, and the same political criminal gang is still in charge. I blame kissinger and nixon for starting the ball rolling on legitimizing that criminal empire, and I think it sucks we have outr economy tied to them, and that western profiteers in suits are bending over backwards to make that police state and military even more powerful. I will predict that within 10 years we will be at war with them, because at that time their population pressures and thirst for oil and more sources of other raw materials will force them to expand outwards, and we just might not be strong enough to stop them without annihilating the entire planet.
It sucks, I was against "normalization" with china without quid pro quos of them opening themselves up to normal freedoms and normal political process. All we have done is enrich china at the full expense of the US middle class, we traded cheap trinkets at walmart to build up the political party and war machine of a nation that has already killed more of it's own people then were killed in all of ww2. They are goons, I hope their people finally get hip and revolt against those goons.
And I hope we can eventually get rid of the democrat and republican parties inside this nation as well, two of the most corrupt organizations to ever have been created. We don't have any sort of "representative republic" unless you happen to be a billionaire internationalist. The vote is a joke,it's hijacked now, the appointed judges are all hand picked criminal gang members. The big time mass media is run by international profiteers aligned with the various war machines. they sit on each others boards of directors, slurping up the proofits, and the media helps keep people brainwashed. I mean, really, how can any honest journalist even use the term "detainee" without giggling? It's such a doublespeak farce.
No one in the US has anything righteous to be proud of any more, we suck as bad as any other bogus dictato
Yeah....but all the chips were made at AMDs CHINA plant.