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Chinese Tianhe-1A Supercomputer Starts Churning Out the Science
gupg writes "When China built the world's fastest supercomputer based on NVIDIA GPUs last year, a lot of naysayers said this was just a stunt machine. Well, guess what — here comes the science! They are working on better material for solar panels and they ran the world's fastest simulation ever. NVIDIA (whose GPUs accelerate these applications as a co-processor) blogged on this a while ago, where they talk about how the US really needs to up its investment in high performance computing."
I just wonder how long it will be after the hoopla goes away before this machine starts being used for its real purpose it was bought for... brute forcing cryptographic keys and signatures, and perhaps an occassional factor of an RSA key or two.
We all know what this computer will really be used for. . .
I have no problem with the message, but of course the GM of the GPU Computing unit wants the US to buy more NVIDIA GPUs.
> US really needs to up its investment in high performance computing
Yeah... maybe China will loan the US some more money to do that with.
NVIDIA (whose GPUs accelerate these applications as a co-processor) blogged on this a while ago, where they talk about how the US really needs to up its investment in high performance computing."
This just in: Company who makes GPUs for supercomputers thinks that people should buy more of their GPUs.
Is there cake?
int main() {
return 42;
}
Fastest simulation of what? What does that even mean!?!?
Big deal, we use our supercomputers to play Jeopardy...LOSERS!
Rumors on the dark web say the NSA has got something faster. 500Ghz+ per node...
up its investment in
Will the Chinese continue loaning us enough money to do that?
Doesn't look like it.
Stuxnet?
Yours In Krasnoyarsk,
Kilgore Trout
Why bother when we can just buy the panels from the Chinese for so little? I can make enough money from a job at McDonalds to afford some of those panels.
So does that, like give you a very high frame rate on Bioshock? cool ...
The purpose of existence is to make money.
An article about a supercomputer and it's performance, and only 1 or 2 comments that are not snarky or bitchin about something. Just go back and read them. Total waste of a person's time, like most comments in most articles. I'm turning in my Karma and password. See ya.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
its a half-page blog post from the systems vendor, nvidia, singing the praises of their customer. as a computer scientist i want an independent scientific review...so should you, slashdot 2.0
"Andy Keane joined NVIDIA in 2006 as GM of the new GPU Computing business unit. Previously, he was a VP at start-ups Morphics and Ageia, which focused on the development of parallel computing technologies for the telecoms and consumer industries. "
oh goodie...the blog isnt even from a scientist at nvidia, just one of their general managers.
Ill save some time for ya, the other link is just third party shit from HPCwire singing the praises of nvidia, plugging their NASDAQ tag, and once again singing the praises of nvidia with sponsored ads.
oh, and of course authors will insist [insert potential rival competitor country here] invest more in high performance computing.
Good people go to bed earlier.
In related news, Republicans announce massive new cuts to US science research and computer analysis projects, in order to give new tax breaks to wealthy billionaires who offshore US jobs to china.
Is there any doubt any more that Republicans are traitors, owned by globalist corporations which hold no allegiance whatsoever to the US and view common people as things to be exploited to enrich themselves, and have done all they can to undermine the US;s basic critical public investments in its science and education capabilities, as well as our investments in training new scientists, and even health care and rehabilitative services so we are not leaving our own people to die on the street? Republicans are more than willing to offer up the poor and decimate essential public investments in science to give more tax breaks to bloated billionaires who make their riches by destroying this country and its industry and massive human exploiitation and abuse.
The US is a failing country because corporate elites have decided they no longer need the US and the American people are buying into the lies of the fascist Republicans whose entire agenda and every policy is designed to hurt americans, to destroy our countries ability to fund its needs, to give more tax breaks to billionaires who are destroying our jobs to enrich themselves at our expense. Their systematic attcks on unions and our education system is designed to leave the people of this country with no voice and with no rights. To reverse this, we need to increase taxes on the wealthiest elites and invest it back into this countries infrastructure, reducing income inequality and putting more money back into the middle class, who need to be employed to build the countries future. Republicans worship and give tax breaks to bankers and wall street types who make their money as parasites and adding nothing of value, and take millions of dollars, than attack teachers and firefighters who earn average, middle class wages and whose services could not be more critical and valuable. Unless something enriches wealthy billionaires republicans want to get rid of it, and what we see is reverse income redistribution where money is being taken from the middle class and being given to an ever bloated wealthy elite who seem to think they should be able to exploit workers and control and own everything in this country, to enrich themselves with profits gained by further impoverishing workers.
Until we can reinvigorate unions, renew our comiitment to public education and make college education a universal option, invest in new energy infrastructure to get us off oil and onto renewable energy, invest heavily in NASA and science and cut the defence spending, and move health care from the for profit insurance system to a France type universal health care system which provides better quality for half the cost, and publicly invest in our people, such as rehabilitation and aid to help make sure children are well fed and grow up to be healthy and smart, and that we are not allowing our people who have been laid off by offshoring billionaires to die on the street, the US will continue its downward slide.
"how the US really needs to up its investment in high performance computing."
As long as the defense industry continues to give (contribute) generously to members of the US government we can rest assured that the USofA will spend every buck it can print on useless, futile, BULLSHIT wars to the exclusion of any science, no matter how important.
Wars are BIG business, nobody in the government gives a shit about "terrorism" or "defending freedom", all any of these cynical, crooked parasites care about is money and the pursuit of absolute power!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
...now up yours!
I only know of minor successes in materials engineering and genetics but even those weren't very commercially successful. A course I took at MIT about 6 years ago the professor was talking about saving 10 million for Ford using HPC materials engineering modelling but 10 million isn't very impressive. I always hear HPC "is working on" a bunch of exciting sounding stuff but I never have heard of any big successes. Has there been any big achievement of HPC other than rendering 3D movies quicker, breaking codes during wars, and helping governments spy on their own people?
"The US really needs to up its investment in high performance computing."
Really? Well let's have a look at the top500 list shall we? Now while Linpack leaves some things to be desired (like the fact that clusters perform better on it than they can on some things like particle simulation) but it is the standard.
So of the top 10 system 5, half, are in the US. #2, 5, 7, 8 and 10 are US computers. The next 10? 7 of them in the US. So 12 of the top 20 are US systems. Most of them are US government systems too, and the ones that aren't are university. So not like "Big companies that happen to be in the US," but research universities and government research agencies like the DOE and so on.
It also isn't stopping. The Advanced Simulation & Computing Program (formerly ASCI) is going on and more computers are being built. LANL has chosen Cray to build the next one, Cielo. It is partially complete and online now, though still being added to. Currently #10 on the list, it will move up a bit when it is complete.
So I don't see the US as not investing in this.
What I see them not doing is buying nVidia GPU based systems, which is fine. GPUs are neat and all but they are not as general purpose as CPUs. They are stream processors. Now if your project is one that stream processors are good at then great. However not all projects are. Particle simulation, that I mentioned before, is one that stream processors aren't so good at. So just because something is higher on the Linpack based top500, doesn't mean it is faster at everything.
Regardless, it isn't like the US needs to be on the number 1 spot to be good. The more telling fact is how many are there, that the US has over half of the systems in the top 20. Clearly supercomputers are something the US has plenty of. Keep going down the list and you keep seeing a lot of US systems.
This is just nVidia trying to play on the whole patriotism thing to make sales.
They're miserable little screwballs that haven't accomplished shit with themselves, ever. The best they can do is troll, and bitch, at the folks that have done well by comparison. Personally, I suspect they're from competing sites and try to drive others off of this website through their stupid antics. Don't let them succeed with you.
anything we put into new technology just ends up in the patent portfolio's pocket with their blanket 'innovations'
To conclude that the US needs to invest more in computing requires more evidence than China having a faster computer than the US or the say-so of a company who would directly benefit from such an investment, but rather some argument involving opportunity cost.
"A good capitalist will sell you the rope you hang him with" is, AFAIK, a Karl Marx aphorism
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
for the people who are... still alive....
They bought the biggest supercomputer in the world outside various national intelligence agencies, and all they can do is come up with yet another variation of just-around-the-corner solar technology? What's next, tokamak fusion, batteries with high energy and power density, and flying cars?
NASA is also using GPUs -- looks for climate / atmospheric modeling.
So is the NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration).
Is the US the only country that is allowed to be any good at this? To me it seems the story isn't the US investment in supercomputing is dropping, because it isn't. The story is that other countries are investing more in it. That is a good thing IMO. The US shouldn't be the be-all, end-all of research.
Also please remember the nature of these things are that you get displaced. You are #1, someone builds a new #1. It isn't like you can just whack out a new one. Supercomptuers take a lot of time and money to build.
The US has the 250 million processor known as the LardAss. Bite on that, suckers!
NVIDIA blogged on this a while ago, where they talk about how the US really needs to up its investment in high performance computing.
NVIDIA: China has upped its investment in HPC. So up yours.