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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."
...he now has the justification for invading Iran.
Not only can they never be allowed to have nukes but it will be a cold day in hell before they are allowed to get the processing power to run Windows Vista!!!!!
Folks, no need to panic or call for invasion just yet. They still have twenty two more letters before they can get from AMD to WMD.
Intel Inside, at least we don't support terrorisim....
I think it falls under the "It's my ball, and I'm going home" set of rules.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Im shocked that there may be resellers who are less than reputable!
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Is it just a coincidence that their supercomputer has 216 processors which is 6 * 6 * 6 ???
10 years ago, yes. But, seriously, it takes only about $30k to build a tera-scale system with commodity parts. And, if single precision is OK, $2400 will get you 900 "gig-flops" worth of PS3s. Last time I went through Bahrain, you could buy those in the airport for your kids, so they shouldn't be too hard for the Iranian government to buy.
Not sure what the story is here...
-Chris
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.
I guess we'll expect to see Team Tehran moving up in the seti@home rankings.
I suggest that from now on, we just use "Obligatory .... Nevermind" and bypass any pretense of anything else.
....
See below for example
Subject: Obligatory
Comment: Nevermind
We'll eventually just shorten it to
Subject: Nevermind
Comment:
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Seriously, I'm getting tired of governments who are scaring their citizens about Iran's threat to this world. I'm glad they were able to achieve this despite all the embargoes against them.
"The Iranian supercomputer falls far behind the world's fastest computers. In November, the BlueGene/L System, jointly developed by IBM and the U.S. Department of Energy was ranked No. 1 in the world with a benchmark performance of 478.2 teraflops. A teraflop equals a trillion calculations per second."
Indeed, the article mentions at the end that it falls far behind the rest of the world. In fact, to make the Top 500 this year you had to have a supercomputer worthy of 5.9 Teraflops.
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.
No, they just want to play WoW without any lag.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
You do realise that it was the Australian media that posted this.. not the US Media... I mean seriously.. this is not even a case of reading the fucking article.. its a case of mousing over the link to the fucking article and seeing its a .au domain... Don't be such a lazy ass.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Don't you get it. We have to be afraid of Iran. They are a threat. Ahmidnidaklsjadeasred, whatever, wants to end civilization as we know it!! With this SUPERCOMPUTER they could calculate the exact coordinates of New York and bomb it into oblivion!! (end sarcasm)
Seriously though, Iran is a scapegoat for US politicians. They can't handle, politically, the fact that their foreign policy initiatives fail consistently in the Middle East. They need a shadowy, vageuly evil figure to pit the fear of the electorate against the critical thinking of the electorate, which is the side that says invasions, coups, and exploitation aren't working. If it weren't for the Iran, the Iraq war would have zero political viability. Instead, Iran provides a "threat" so it becomes politically viable to call for indefinite troop deployment.
This is a most bizarre case of symbiotism. Ahmadinejade is pretty much an idiot (see no gays in Iran comment) who doesn't really have all that special of a record. Is he a threat to world civilization, probably not. He does, however, say enough dumb things that he gives political capital to his enemies in the west. His enemies in the west return the favor by imposing sanctions, threatening pre-emptive attacks, etc. It's a twisted quid pro quo kind of thing. He gets to appeal to Iranian nationalism against the threat of American attack, and the White House gets to appeal to Americans' fears of an evil terrorist state with nukes and a supercomputer.
Moral of the story is that fear, uncertainty, and doubt breeds political power. Any time someone tells you to be afraid, take it with a grain of salt.
I got a catholic block.
This is notable because it is the largest amount of computer power assembled that will never be used to collect porn.
Maybe they want to play a wicked fast game of pong...
Only his tendency toward a dazed stupor prevented him from screaming aloud.
The idea that you can somehow 'ban' a country from getting ahold of a commodity is ludicrious and stupid. The only way you could really do that would be to effectively seal and close their borders militarily and embargo them to the point that you controlled all of their travel and trade outside of their borders. Good luck with that.
Why Iran is not (apparently) allowed to have nuclear energy, or high powered computers? Have they ever detonated a computer guided nuclear weapon in someone else's country?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
And so does Christianity and Judaism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury#Usury_within_religious_texts
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
I guess they went to the blowout sale for the CompUSA in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Actually the link is an Australian repost of an American media story. Here's the original (as linked in the Australian repost): http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204800653&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All
Iran has vowed to annihilate Israel, which is an (undeclared) nuclear power. It would be impossible for Iran to have anything resembling a chance of doing so without effective nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them, and impossible to get a nuke working reliably without testing it. (Imagine if you're Ahmadine-Jihad and your nuke misfires, showering undetonated uranium over downtown Tel Aviv; not only has your glorious jihad failed before it ever began, but you are, to all intents and purposes, screwed.)
Were Iran to test a nuclear weapon in real life, they would get noticed pretty quickly (the seismic readings would see to that), and a preemptive strike would soon follow. (Once there is no doubt that the Iranians are working on nuclear weapons, there'd be little resistance to ensure that they don't succeed; it's not only the US, Europe and Israel who are worried, but their Sunni Islamic neighbours, regarded by them as apostates, are none too comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iran. Add to that Ahmadine-Jihad's support of the concept of martyrdom (the Iranian government actually recruits suicide bombers for jihadist attacks against US/Jewish/Sunni interests), and you've got the sort of nuclear power that can't be trusted to do the sensible thing and sit on its nukes as a defensive weapon of last resort.
As such, supercomputing power of this sort would be vitally important in running nuclear simulations and perfecting a bomb.
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.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Most US nuclear weapons were designed using computers under 1 MIPS. Even the fusion bombs. About 40 years ago, I was visiting a UNIVAC 1105 installation (the biggest all-vacuum-tube computer ever built as a commercial product, designed when Gen. Leslie Groves was at UNIVAC), and they'd done some work on bomb design. It took about two days per run, and they'd run the program at the same time some other location was running it. Every three hours, the console typewriter would print out a checksum, and they'd phone the other location to see if it matched. If not, they had to back up to the last checkpoint tape and restart.
This huge machine was comparable in power to a PC/AT with an FPU chip; a good 1985 desktop.
The silly thing about export controls on computers is that the U.S. Government keeps increasing the control threshold for "supercomputers". The current threshold is 750 gigaflops, which is a few racks of servers. In 1995, it was 2 gigaflops, or about where a low-end PC is today. Back in 1987, there was a big flap when Iran tried to get hold of a VAX 8600, which is about 0.005 gigaflops. But bomb design isn't getting any more difficult.
Any modern laptop can do the calculations necessary for bomb design. Deal with it.
that doesn't bother you?
whether pro-usa, or anti-usa, or pro-israel, or anti-israel, this should bother you, regardless
i'm sorry, but in this world, very little concepts frighten me more than a theocracy with nukes
and i'm not talking about the loose propagandistic label of "theocracy" one might apply to say, the usa, because the current president (who will soon be gone) is a conservative southern baptist. i'm talking about an actual, stated, as clearly implied in the constitution, theocracy. as in, our government serves god and those unelected grumpy old men over there interpret what he wants. the real deal, a real genuine clearly stated theocracy
any rational human being should feel threatened by a theocracy with nukes. regardless of any of your other concerns in the middle east, or any of your other politics in general
http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-info/Government/constitution.html
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You are wrong.
Google the news on Iran and that latest CIA report that says Iran stopped pursuing nuclear weapons in 2003. Guess what you'll find -- the EU, France, Germany and others basically saying the U.S. intelligence is flawed and Iran is a much greater nuclear threat than that report states.
France and Germany are pushing for harsher sanctions than the U.N. ones. They want separate EU sanctions on Iran, and still call their nuclear program "a threat".
The Middle East nations all are fearful of Iran as is, and terrified of them having nuclear weapons. Arabs != Persians.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Since they're using AMD, this should be an easy target to visit with your basic heat seeking missile.
Unless, of course, the signature overwhelms the sensor.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
CompUSA + Iraq = Compaq
$signature =~ s/$signature//;
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.
How exactly is their form of government supposed to be any more of a threat with nuclear weapons than any other form of governance which posseses nuclear weapons? Why is a constitutional theocracy more dangerous to the world than a 'democracy' ruled by theocrats?
Are the leaders of a theocracy any less motivated by desire for wealth and power? Are they more suicidal than a theocrat, or any other politician, ruling a democracy?
I haven't seen anything in your argument showing why a theocracy is more of a danger with nukes beyond using "theocracy" as a magic fearphrase like "think-of-the-children" etc.
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.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Hmm,
From:
The Iranian Consulate
50 Kensington Court
Kensington
London
W8 5DB
To:
PC World
47/53 Kensington High Street
Kensington
London
W8 5ED
0.2 mi - Quite a bit less than a 5 minute walk.
Head east on Kensington Ct (259 ft)
Turn left to stay on Kensington Ct (240 ft)
Turn left at A315/Kensington Rd &
Continue to follow A315 (0.1 mi)
Not really that far, There's even a McDonalds just a little further on after PC World if you need a snack before you head back.
Of course on the downside you would end up paying over the odds for anything you buy....
However supercomputers have now progressed to the point that you can actually TEST a bomb all in software.
This is inaccurate.
The basic nuclear design tools are finite element modeling and Monte Carlo simulations. With larger and larger number of elements modeled, you can get more and more accurate simulations in the same timeframe, so that the model has closer and closer resemblance to experimental reality. You also need some baseline data; some of that is declassified, some can be obtained experimentally on smaller scale using neutron beams, lasers, and high explosives. But the most important data on the high efficiency yield properties, and the algorithmic optimizations allowing rapid and detailed simulations, remain classified.
Even with a supercomputer design, without an actual test, you can't be sure your extrapolations and simulations will be as good as you hope. Getting a nuclear explosion isn't the real challenge; it's making one that's efficient. (This may have been North Korea's problem; sub-kiloton yields can result if you make a mistake.) However, a good computer lets you get a better idea of the sorts design variants you want to play with before you go risking your very expensively obtained fissionables on a test explosion.
But basic work and a rough model once you have the basic materials data? Two days on the HP-49 calculator, including programming time. A 7x7x7 element model gives you numbers that will be within 10% of the final... which does translate into an order of magnitude difference in possible yield, but anything from 1 to 100 kilotons still gets attention.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.