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Europe Plans Exascale Funding Above U.S. Levels
dcblogs writes "The European Commission last week said it is doubling its multi-year investment in the push for exascale computing from €630 million to €1.2 billion (or the equivalent of $1.58 billion). They are making this a priority even as austerity measures are imposed to prevent defaults. China, meanwhile, has a five-year plan to deliver exascale computing between 2016-20 (PDF). The Europeans announced the plan the same week the White House released its fiscal year 2013 budget, which envisions a third year of anemic funding to develop exascale technologies. Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy science budget asked for nearly $91 million in funding for the efforts in the current fiscal year; it received $73.4 million. DOE science is trying for about $90 million for exascale for 2013. There's more funding tucked in military and security budgets. The U.S. wants exascale around 2018, but it has yet to deliver a plan or the money for it."
Who knows any kind of toys they have barred in the NSA, and DoD. And given the amount of money that flies through defense contracts wouldn't be hard to hide that in a small line item somewhere(likely next to that Wayne Tech justice league space station *wink*).
Why is everyone pushing for exascale computing? What is such a super computer used for? Couldn't a massive distributed system work just as well?
Such government "grand" plans are good to distract the crowds, entertain the peons, and prop politicians and their friend's pet projects and corporations up. But the fact that such project requires forcing people to "invest" in them is proof that these resources are misaligned to the current needs and preferences of the people.
I'm sure that we'll get to exascale at some point, but trying to push it too early (before investors find ways to fund it voluntarily) means wasted opportunities. Unfortunately, as Bastiat pointed out, such project yields easily seen results whereas the opportunity cost tends to be ignore, as it is difficult to know. Don't forget this unseen cost.
I didn't know what it was, I don't follow supercomputing very closely. I looked it up. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exascale_computing
"Exascale computing refers to computing capabilities beyond the currently existing petascale. If achieved, it would represent a thousandfold increase over that scale."
To define Petascale:
"In computing, petascale refers to a computer system capable of reaching performance in excess of one petaflops, i.e. one quadrillion floating point operations per second." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petascale
A Petascale computer, the Cray XT5 Jaguar can do 1.75 petaflops. To reach an exaflop, it would require almost 6000 installations of this supercomputer.
So yeah, Exaflop is pretty big. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(computing)
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
The US is awash in privately funded technology R&D toward exascale computing. While there is government funding, it is somewhat superfluous to the extent that US has a huge, well-funded private sector obsessed with massively scaling just about everything vaguely related to computing. That whole Internet-scale computing thing.
The US is hardly disadvantaged by the government not spending money on exascale computing. The US government does not need to compensate for the absence of private investment.
Try not to forget that most of Europe was rubble in 1945. A good portion of the second half of the 20th century was spent building houses and infrastructure that had been obliterated by American, German, and Soviet bombs. It's only natural that they had to play catch-up in many aspects of technology. That has come to an end now, with Europe at or exceeding American levels in most areas of research & technology.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
We have no ability to put humans in space.
We no longer host any major sub-atomic research facility. The generation after the CERN will not be in the US. We're not even in the running.
The next big ground based radio telescope will not be in the US.
The NASA planetary exploration budget is being diverted to fund private launch companies. If there was a viable economic model for space transport, then private sector equity funding would be available. It's not. Many of the commercial space ventures are funded by individuals who made fortunes in software (Musk, Carmac, Bezos, Allen. Branson, but in music and transportation), Wall Street is not betting on making money in the launch sector. Putting NASA money into launch ventures is not basic science R&D.
We are, however teaching creationism and climate change denial in schools. Most of the Republican presidential candidates are anti-evolution. Santorum just said that he is "pro-science", and the Democrats are anti-science. This is clearly in 1984 territory: Ignorance Is Strength.
Most Slashdot readers will experience the slide into 3rd world status during the course of their lives.
Why is Snark Required?
Did anybody else first interpret the headline as commentary on the national debt?
I'll just address one point:
We have no ability to put humans in space.
Temporarily, because we have MULTIPLE private companies working to that end. In just a few years we'll have multiple private companies that can put way more people in space than any government ever has, a far superior situation to be in.
Do not mistake transition for defeat.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
most of their planes are uninspired boeing clones
Boeing was actually a partner in the A380 project at one point, but it bailed and started the Dreamliner. I bet they're still sulking about that decision.
The only project Europe can be commended on is ITER
the only other thing they contributed to was maybe was European settlement of the west (what is now the United States), but that doesn't really matter I guess; I’m sure the native Indian population would have eventually established NASA, NIF, etc anyway
I’m sure the native Indian population would have eventually established NASA, NIF, etc anyway
If people descended from those who crossed the Bering Strait to settle North America are 'natives', then certainly so are people descended from those who crossed the Atlantic.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
that wasn't the point of my comment, but in any case "native Indians" (or "native Americans") are what they are known as, probably because they were the displaced population at the time of European settlement. On the other hand, I would be interested to know what makes you think American Indians originated from across the Bering Strait. Any sources? (not saying you're wrong, just curious... Googling now)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States
Let's go through your examples: .. a weak form of NASA"
"NASA went to space, so Europe made the ESA
Ok, the ESA has got nothing on NASA (no surprise since its total funding it sadly only about 1/5th what NASA gets). But the only reason NASA was able to get to the moon so quickly back in the day was that it 'stole' German rocket technology and scientists after the war. Everything NASA's done since then has been based on developments on the rocket technology it got from Germany after the war.
"The US starting building the supercollider (which Reagan cancelled) so they built the LHC -- a weaker supercollider ... they only win cause supercollider funding got cut"
Nonsense, the LHC is a machine that is literally *the edge* of what current science and technology can do, which is why it's taken so long to get it working. You can't compare that to a collider that was cancelled 20 years ago due to being unrealisticly expensive to build.
"The US has Boeing so Europee made Airbus -- most of their planes are uninspired boeing clones"
Airbus pioneered the use technologies like fly-by-wire and composite fuselages long before Boeing dared. They've also introduced new aircraft that change the economics on certain routes such as the A380. Not to mention that the first commercial jetliner in production was the deHavilland Comet from the UK, although it proved unsafe and was eventually overtaken by the American 707.
"The US built the National Ignition Facility to study nuclear fusion, so Europe is building Laser Megajoule"
The NIF and ITER are two different approaches to achieving viable nuclear fusion, Europe has commited the majority of its funding to the ITER approach but it'd be stupid not to have some smaller scale experiments which use the approach that NIF uses. Just as I'm sure the US has some experiments that try the ITER torus approach.
Oh and BTW the National Ignition Facility was 5 years behind schedule and almost 4 times more expensive than originally budgeted when completed.
There are areas of scient and technology where the US is ahead and some where Europe is, but it's always annoying in those discussions to have some jingoistic American spread around the myth that all technological development comes from the US and Europe (and everyone else) are just copiers. It's a myth not supported by history, including not by recent history.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
NASA went to space...
... using the expertise of a bunch of German rocket scientists.
The US has Boeing...
... thanks to the jet engine, invented by a Brit.
America's special talent seems to be taking inventions from others and making them fit for mass consumption(*). But I'm not so sure they're the great innovators you claim they are.
(*) A trend that was curiously reversed with the Internet and the World Wide Web.
From the article:
"As for China, 'the Chinese are very practical in this regard,' said Joseph. 'They are very interested in how they use their machines to make their industries stronger.'"
LOL
This fits my picture of Europe, US and Japan calculating wheather, eartquakes and nuclear explosions, while the Chinese let their industry sector use it to improve their products.
I assume a "+1 funny" as otherwise I'd have to assume that you're oblivious to the numerous scientific contributions for which Europeans have received recognitions like the Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal. You've got a point though: research around the globe is tightly coupled and so the funded projects resemble each other. You could add Japan to the mix. Their K computer isn't just a copy of some IBM BlueGene or such. And it's currently the fastest machine, at least until BlueGene/Q results are in.
Europe on the other hand doesn't have a serious computer hardware industry. The only chip manufacturers left (e.g. IBM, AMD, Nvidia, Fujitsu etc.) are all non-european. For a layman, this may make it kind of hard to imagine what Europe would spend its funding on, if they can't build the hardware themselves. Well, it turns out that software is a major part of exascale computing because at that scale effects (e.g. reliability of the hardware, scalability of IO) play a major role, but didn't hurt as much on the Petaflop machines. Now, when you turn your face to the software aspect, then you will see that a sizeable part of the papers published at the relevant conferences (e.g. http://sc11.supercomputing.org/ ) are European, and in many aspects they set the benchmark in terms of scalability and performance.
That said, it's hard to find a purely European or US project nowadays as many research institutions collaborate
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
Most of the really competent scientist in the US are foreign-born and have always been.
As for copying it has been a give and take for the few decades the US has had any intellectuals at all.
How many pre-Franklin intellectuals can you recall? Where were they born?
We all played catch up to the _Germans_ which are _European_. The US hired Oppenheimer to build their shit, the Russians stole the blueprints and did it themselves. Thats how the US got to space, that is how the Russians got to space.
Can I light a sig ?
I know it wasn't your point, it was just a good place from which to troll. And you pretty much answered your question with the wikipedia link below. I haven't looked much into it. I just remember the basics of the theory. They must have come from somewhere though, unless homo sapiens developed in N. America independent from development in Africa.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Resolving the turbulent flow around an airfoil with a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS, i.e., without a turbulent model) requires an exascale computer in order to be practical (i.e. only take some weeks).
At the moment there is a whole science of creating turbulence models for approximating turbulence behavior. However, because turbulence is one of the most important unresolved problems of classical mechanics, none of the models work in all cases, and in some cases, none work.
We are still far from having "exascale on the desktop" but some practical DNS simulations will give a lot of insight into turbulence, allowing us to develop better turbulence models with the corresponding improvements in energy efficiency (e.g. aerodynamics, combustion, lubrication,... for applications in combustion engines, wind turbines, cars, trains, ships, airplanes, weather forecasting...).
They'll be running Windows.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
The US built the National Ignition Facility to study nuclear fusion, so Europe is building Laser Megajoule
The NIF and ITER are two different approaches to achieving viable nuclear fusion, Europe has commited the majority of its funding to the ITER approach but it'd be stupid not to have some smaller scale experiments which use the approach that NIF uses. Just as I'm sure the US has some experiments that try the ITER torus approach.
Mégajoule (MJ) is not primarily motivated by fusion as a public energy source (although it will be used for research on that too, on the side) but by military considerations. Now that live nuclear weapon testing has been banned, ensuring proper operation of nukes can only be achieved through simulation and such tests facilities as the NIF and MJ. That's really why both were created. And by the way, MJ is not a European project but a French one: nuclear deterrence is at national level only, Europe is not involved in such military stuff.
Also, it seemed to me NIF and MJ are cooperating actually (sharing parts of the design and costs), so opposing them or saying one is a copycat of the other seems silly. Not that I'm an expert on such stuff, so take with a grain of salt and double check if you care.
The is GPU based computing but if your problem fits that paradigm then your're set: http://blogs.nvidia.com/2011/11/exascale-an-innovator%E2%80%99s-dilemma (No I don't work for nvidia)
Xerox?
I know the truth and I know what you're thinking
NASA went to space...
... using the expertise of a bunch of German rocket scientists.
...and chased there by the Soviets (first artificial satellite, first animal in orbit (though not the first in space), first man in space and first EVA).
It's official. Most of you are morons.