Iran Builds Supercomputer From Banned AMD Parts

Stony Stevenson writes with the news that, despite a ban on US PC hardware, Iranian techs have built an enormously powerful supercomputer from 216 AMD processors. The Linux-cluster machine has a 'theoretical peak performance of 860 gig-flops'. "The disclosure, made in an undated posting on [the University of] Amirkabir's Web site, brought an immediate response Monday from AMD, which said it has never authorized shipments of products either directly or indirectly to Iran or any other embargoed country."

Comments

'Banned'?

[Stavr0]

When's the last time AMD motherboard and CPUs have been manufactured in the US? AFAIK, they're all fab'd in Taiwan or China. These parts may never have entered of left the United States at all.

Re:'Banned'?

[mr_mischief]

The company is still a US company, and is required to obey US law regardless of whether the chip fab is in the US, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Germany, or Ireland. I've never seen an AMD chip fabbed in China.

The ban on business with Iran goes well beyond military exports. It's a ban on business, period. It's called an embargo. It's to economically punish Iran for being enemies to the US and its allies.

In case anyone hasn't noticed the course of the last 300 years of warfare, it's not the size of your population or the fealty of a few princes in neighboring cities that make a country powerful any longer. It's your economy. The size of your fleet of ships, tanks, planes, subs, helicopters, jeeps, and other vehicles is one key. The logistical support of modern electronics and a worldwide communications network is another these days. A distribution network for troops, equipment, and supplies is a third. The money to keep a standing army well trained is important. The more business you do with enemies or potential enemies, the stronger they can become militarily. All this has been the trend since at least the Industrial Revolution. It became a stark truth nobody could deny in the World Wars, especially WW II.

This is why so many military people are interested in the US's levels of trade with China. We're not in a very friendly state with them, although relations are fairly solid. We send them more money every year, though, and their year-over-year growth in military spending is starting to closely follow the growth in the US/China trade imbalance. American consumers are supporting the Chinese military, and if they ever decide to assert that power against the US, it'll be those DVD players, dolls, lead-painted trains, and TVs that funded it. Relations with China are good enough right now, though, that it's kind of a long view type of mild concern. The Taiwan issue might change that some day, but China hasn't called for the death of the US, the UK, and Israel just yet, nor has their president denied the Holocaust.

Iran, on the other hand, was ruled by a US ally. It was taken over by militant theocrats who held US citizens hostage for well over a year. Many of us still remember the yellow ribbons for those hostages. They have supported terrorists in Israel, and they are believed to be funding and supplying terrorists within Iraq. No, I don't mean insurgent freedom fighters. Insurgent freedom fighters don't blow up women and children at Mosques and in the marketplaces. Insurgent freedom fighters attack military personnel and military targets with minimal collateral damage to their own country's people and property. I believe there are some people in Iraq who really are trying to just fight against the US occupation, but there's something else going on there as well. Don't be fooled for a second into thinking that religiously ruled Shia Iran is keeping any money or weapons it supplies away from death squads killing Aramaic Christians, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds in the streets. If they are indeed placing weapons and supplies into Iraq as is claimed, it's surely to help the Shiite cause more than anything else.

Why would a country so against what the US and our allies represent not be on a banned trading list? Hell, we still don't trade with Castro except for selling Cuba medicine and food. I still can't legally buy a Cuban cigar just because he nationalized a bunch of US-owned nightclubs and hotels and took the country socialist. Sure, Castro's a dictator, but when has that single fact ever stopped the US? I'd remove Cuba from the list long before Iran. Hell, we're even friendly with Libya now, and they blew up a Pam Am flight in the 80's. But Iran? No. Not under Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.

I am encouraged by this

[cryfreedomlove]

This tells me that there are university professors and students who are passionate about hi-tech. That passion is a productive alternative to the other model we have of Iran as a bunch of wild eyed fundamentalists who want to bomb the world back to the 8th century. Perhaps this competing force of moderation in Iran will grow its influence through hi tech and universities.

Before you panic

[bigsexyjoe]

The purpose of this machine is forecasting and meteorological research, which imho is a reasonable thing for the nation of Iran to do. Granted this just what they say the computer is for, but we only know about it because they announced that they built it. If it was a computer that designed nuclear weapons (or whatever), we can assume they wouldn't tell anyone about it.

You don't know SHIT! But I will 'try' to educate

[linumax]

"It takes them from a bunch-of-religious-radicals with guns to a bunch-of-religious-radicals with a nuclear bomb."

So sick of this misconception and ignorance, I really want to insult you somehow, but since that probably won't help much, I'll explain:

There are a few religious radicals in Iran in the lower to mid levels of the government, but they are significantly outnumbered by the other group.

Wanna know who this other group is? Please read on, till the end...

I start with someone you are familiar with; do you consider Dick Cheney a radical Christian or a ruthless businessman which uses religion or any other tool as a means to make profit? like when he talks about supporting the troops does he really care about the troops or he has an agenda of his own?
Well, Cheney is one of the members of the "Other Group", the businessmen, except he is American.

In Iran we have our own businessmen. Since the 'Islamic' revolution of 1979, these people have taken over the government in a country where 90%+ of the economy is owned and operated by the government.

A clear example, is the largest of these business entities: Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), most recent bogeyman on CNN/FOX. While the American media focuses on the 'military' part of IRGC's operation, they neglect to mention the much much bigger side of IRGC.
Revolutionary Guards is the single biggest business entity in Iran, they build all the dams, bridges, tunnels and roads, railroad, they operate civilian airports all across the country, they do the largest mining operations, they own many of the largest and most profit generating financial institutions in Iran and this list goes on forever.
Almost half of the members of the current parliament are former IRGC members, Ahmadinejad himself made his way to being Tehran's Mayor and later, Iran's president through IRGC.

Another example is Mesbah Yazi, a mid-level clergy, known as the mentor of Ahmadinejad, the biggest fucking piece of shit I know in Iran. Plays the same role to Ahmadi Nejad as Dick plays to Bush. But there's another side to this guy, he is also known as "Sultan of Sugar" in Iran. He controls import, distribution and sale of all Sugar in Iran. Believe me, in a country of 70 million population a monopoly on sugar is better than a monopoly on gold mines. He also says that the 'Zionist regime' of Israel is doomed, however nuking them means end of the sweet sugar business for him.

Former president Rafsanjani, former parliament speaker Nategh Noori and many others are businessmen too. They don't give a fuck about religion unless in public when preaching people.

In conclusion, I just want you to think, what benefit does nuking Israel which guarantees a much much harsher reaction from Israel bring to these ruling businessmen? See, that's why Iran, even with nukes is no threat at all to any other country?

All that matters to these people is survival of their business, they are not religious zealots, they don't believe in the second coming or afterlife or crap like what they preach to people. If a day comes where wiping their asses with pages of Quran helps them keep control of their business, then that's what they WILL HAPPILY DO.

Thanks for reading my rant.

Re:Bush is relieved...

[hey!]

Technically, what they have is not precisely a despotic regime, although it not really democratic either. Iran's constitution is designed to be as democratic as possible, without quite being democratic.

Essentially, there are two halves of the government, one of which consists of the Majlis (parliament) and the Presidency, which is elected in a straightforward fashion and is responsible for most day to day government work. The other half of the government consists of the Supreme Leader, Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts. That half doesn't so much do things as stop things from happening. It is empowered to interfere in any government or political process, including in extreme cases disqualifying candidates it does not like for standing for the election to the Majlis.

In theory the Supreme Leader is indirectly elected: the people elect the Experts, and the Experts elect the Supreme Leader. However the Supreme Leader appoints the Guardians, who determine who may stand for election as an Expert. Therefore the Supreme Leader is in a position to indirectly disqualify any potential Expert who might vote against him.

The system is much too cumbersome to be despotic, although it has despotic elements. It is certainly more democratic than the old Soviet political system, and there are a number of curious ironies in how it operates. For example, the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, is relatively speaking a political moderate and compared to the popularly elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he is considered pro-western.

Overall, the term "Islamic Republic" seems apt. A western republic is as democratic as it can be without encroaching on the prerogatives and liberties of the individual. Iran's government is as democratic as possible without encroaching on the prerogatives and authority of authorities in Islamic law.

Should have bought Playstations

[billstewart]

US supercomputer export laws are constantly being revised - the Sony Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 were both fast enough to be illegal-to-export supercomputers when they came out. This new Iranian machine is about 2% as fast as the world's fastest - and about as fast as the fastest machine of 1996-1997. It's also about as fast as the cluster of 70 PS2s that a US university built 4 years ago, or the cluster of 8 PS3s that an astrophysicist built this fall.

Getting good performance out of cluster machines requires some work, but that's what open source software and spare grad students are for. You can't use them for every kind of problem, but they're pretty flexible, and they're certainly good enough for most kinds of nuke design or fluid flow.

Re:Bush is relieved...

[Skuld-Chan]

I still like Noam Chomsky's summary of Iran - Iran is a democratic utopia compared to Saudi Arabia (who the US fully supports).