India Plans To Build Fastest Supercomputer By 2017

Nonsense by GeekWithAKnife · 2012-09-17 03:54 · Score: 1, Insightful

It would be far wiser If they just spend all those millions on poverty programs.

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A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.

Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 03:57 · Score: 0, Insightful

*ahem*
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/17/0156230/how-the-critics-of-the-apollo-program-were-proven-wrong
Re:Nonsense by GeekWithAKnife · 2012-09-17 03:59 · Score: 1

*ahem*
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/17/0156230/how-the-critics-of-the-apollo-program-were-proven-wrong
*cough* You didn't follow the link, did you. *cough*

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A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Re:Nonsense by fustakrakich · 2012-09-17 04:05 · Score: 3, Informative

Heh, did you? This what you're looking for?

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“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:06 · Score: 0

actually, your link starts with this article's url so it doesn't really work.
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:12 · Score: 0

The AC was saying your link was wrong.
Re:Nonsense by Moheeheeko · 2012-09-17 04:13 · Score: 1

The difference here beaing a large portion of Americans in the 50's and 60' werent litterally SHITTING THEMSELVES TO DEATH like is happening in Inda right now.
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:20 · Score: 0

No, poverty programs are just a vehicle for local politicians and middlemen to get rich. Instead, put it into a supercomputer, where the money will go into mainly the hardware and software, as well as paying the software people for their maintenance.
Re:Nonsense by 1s44c · 2012-09-17 05:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

AC,
Moheeheeko raises a fair point. India right now is nothing like the US was in the 1950's and 1960's. India lacks basic infrastructure throughout a great deal of its country and it has poverty and slums the like of which most of the developed world would find hard to believe. Now knock the US for their rampant gun crime all you like but India as a whole is altogether more messed up.
And before you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about I spent enough time in India to know that all the Indian 'It used to be like that but it's better now' crowd are lying for the sake of national pride.
Re:Nonsense by nashv · 2012-09-17 05:02 · Score: 1

Obligatory "a-country-which-I think-it-underdeveloped-and-full-of-poor-naked-children-is-thinking-of-beating-us-at-hi-tech-stuff-zOMG!" troll.

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Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:05 · Score: 0

The difference here beaing a large portion of Americans in the 50's and 60' werent litterally SHITTING THEMSELVES TO DEATH like is happening in Inda right now.
The difference being that there weren't a large number of Americans in the 50's and 60's literally SHITTING THEMSELVES TO DEATH, as is happening in India right now.

There, fixed that for you. Where'd you learn written English, anyway? Were I you, I'd ask for a refund.
Re:Nonsense by ShanghaiBill · 2012-09-17 05:13 · Score: 1

It would be far wiser If they just spend all those millions on poverty programs.
Countries have an interest in making their citizens feel proud and confident. Building supercomputers and spacecraft are much better ways of doing that than the traditional methods of starting a war with Pakistan and/or detonating another atomic bomb.
Re:Nonsense by Hatta · 2012-09-17 05:27 · Score: 1, Flamebait

And before you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about I spent enough time in India to know that all the Indian 'It used to be like that but it's better now' crowd are lying for the sake of national pride.
Just like all the Americans who keep saying we're the best country in the world. Somehow they're always stumped when I ask them, "By what metric?".

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:28 · Score: 0

Just sending food, clothes and such stuff, in all those decades that we did it, changed *nothing*!
Science and education ARE the best poverty programs.
Have you STILL not realized this?
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:35 · Score: 2, Funny

There's your problem. We don't use the metric system.
Re:Nonsense by cayenne8 · 2012-09-17 05:37 · Score: 1

Now knock the US for their rampant gun crime all you like...
What rampant gun crime are you talking about?? Aside from the recent lunatic rampages like the movie theater guy....your average person in the US isn't ever going to see or experience gun crime. You don't hear them being fired off constantly on the streets like I imagine many in the EU seem to think.
Unless you are in the projects trying to buy some crack, you likely will never see much less hear a gun go off here in the city limits.
When you hear of gun crime, it is mostly thug on thug....criminals shooting each other over drugs, and who cares if they take each other out, eh?

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:Nonsense by P-niiice · 2012-09-17 05:50 · Score: 1

I'd more confident if the US had a higher standing in education, or a lower poverty rate, or lower infant mortality. But hey, one mans asshole is another....something like that.
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:56 · Score: 2, Funny

I personally feel we should give them more guns. And battlefields. These thugs are soldiers for whatever their cause is. They're ready to kill and die for it. And the current laws aren't stopping them. So let them have it. Just make sure they're isolated so stray fire can't hit noncombatants. Maybe rent out Soldier field, the MetLife stadium, set up some concrete barriers and let them go nuts on each other. They get to do what they're going to do anyway, the public is safer, and we've got a new reality TV show that can be monetized and taxed. Nobody loses.
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 06:19 · Score: 0

Yes, that was the point. It was a gag, a jest, geddit?
Re:Nonsense by Moheeheeko · 2012-09-17 06:19 · Score: 3, Funny

They did that allready, its called Chicago.
Re:Nonsense by kermidge · 2012-09-17 06:37 · Score: 1

Not arguing that education isn't important, especially in the longer term, but are you seriously claiming that the 100 million CARE packages sent to Europe and elsewhere after WWII weren't useful? People have to be alive to be able to go to school, no?
I don't remember the name of the program, it may've been part of CARE or UNRRA effort, but I recall in grade school back in the Fifties where we contributed (well, most of us via our allowances and small jobs) along with our parents, teachers and local groups to send boxes of tools and seeds to Europe and other places - the idea being that people trying to recover from the ravages of the war would get some help re-building and eating. This by you was worthless?
Re:Nonsense by fatphil · 2012-09-17 06:41 · Score: 1

> By what metric?

Volume?

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Re:Nonsense by fatphil · 2012-09-17 07:08 · Score: 1

From http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_19.html :
In a big city (population over half a million) over .34% of people are victims (not just witnesses to, or scared of, but actual victims) of gun-related crime per year. That's 1 in <300 people. How big is that area of people? That's your tenement building and maybe the building opposite too. I think it's fair to say that there's a good chance people living in such areas have been affected in some way by gun crime. (If any of your close family are victims, then you're affected, if any of your work mates are victims, you might be affected, if any of your local store owners are victims, you might be affected - 1/300 is a gross underestimate, I'm sure.)

In small towns, it looks like it's less than a third of that rate.

Fortunately, the majority do live in smaller towns, but there's still a significant proportion of the population who live in gun-crime-heavy areas.

However, as you say, within those large cities, there's even more of a skew than that - there will be ghetto/project spikes, and more spacious suburbia might be relatively low.

Of course, the flipside of this skewed distribution is that the vast majority of *regions* of the US are not suffering from large quantities of gun crime. Which makes it nice and easy to pick two seemingly contradictory statistics, depending on what side you wish to present.

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Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 07:14 · Score: 0

Somehow they're always stumped when I ask them, "By what metric?".
That's easy! I'd say "Well, being an American is much better than being a citizen of Assholistan, such as Hatta, as a comparison."
Re:Nonsense by craker · 2012-09-17 07:21 · Score: 1

India may need a huge success to put on their pride chart. Before WWII America was largely agricultural and not a rich or a leading nation. Some of the risks that America took were to engage in WWII and then to send a man to the moon. Both stretched the American budget and the people. We came out better for it. So it may be with both India or China when they attempt such lofty goals. In the process they may bring up the status of the entire nation. However I understand that the cast system is still problematic for India.
Re:Nonsense by cayenne8 · 2012-09-17 07:30 · Score: 1

However, as you say, within those large cities, there's even more of a skew than that - there will be ghetto/project spikes, and more spacious suburbia might be relatively low.
I mean, I live in New Orleans...one of the cities with the highest crime rates in the US....and yet, even here..if you're not buying crack in the projects, or looking to find gang members while cruising through 'the hood'....you're not likely to be affected by guns or violence down here. I don't hear gun fire at nights where I live.....I get the feeling that people outside the US have this idea that it is the 'wild west' in the streets here with contant gun fire anywhere you turn, and that simply is not the case.
Sure it spills out from time to time, but in general, I don't feel unsafe in this city, you just know to stay out of certain areas.
It is mostly thugs killing thugs here...

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:Nonsense by reve_etrange · 2012-09-17 07:30 · Score: 1

Why don't you come spend some time with us in Oakland for a while and see how many gunned down children were actually trying to buy crack.

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.: Semper Absurda :.
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 08:08 · Score: 0

This is same old cliche that because India has poverty India should not do space exploration or super computing. I don't understand why only certain countries should be right for such activity and deem all developing countries unfit. Every civilization in the world had to go through poverty and other social problems in human history. Criticizing every scientific en-devour India undertakes just because it has poverty is short sighted at best.
Re:Nonsense by boristdog · 2012-09-17 08:37 · Score: 1

The gunfire metric is funny to me because I live WAY out in the country and I hear gunfire pretty much every day, especially on weekends. But it doesn't scare anyone because out here pretty much everyone has a shooting range somewhere on their property. It's hilly, no one lives on less than 10 acres, and most of us have far more than that.
- many old appliances and dead computers rest in pieces at my place.
- I need to find out who it is to the south of me that has full-auto.
Re:Nonsense by cayenne8 · 2012-09-17 08:45 · Score: 1

Why don't you come spend some time with us in Oakland for a while and see how many gunned down children were actually trying to buy crack.
Well, isn't Oakland pretty much one big, city-wide ghetto at this point? A few cities are like that (Detroit comes to mind too)...where the whole city itself is something pretty much to be abandoned by all but the criminal element.
In normal cities...I still stand by my statements. Oakland and Detroit are exceptions to the rule it seems.

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:Nonsense by parkinglot777 · 2012-09-17 08:53 · Score: 1

Still it sounds like a fallacy. A program (A) is pushed to happen using a certain budget, but a group of people want the money to be spent on another program (B). However, the program (A) continues and its result (C) is a success. Now, a program (D) is being pushed to happen, it does not guarantee a similar result (success) because 1)program D is not the same as program A, 2)the group of people involved in these events are different, and 3)the periods when both events occur are different.
Not that I against the idea, but I would prefer to see a different way of spending money seeing how India poverty is. However, if they think that pride can make their stomach full, then be it.
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 09:11 · Score: 0

Given the series of corruption cases in India over the last decade, one can safely assume this project is only going to be biggest even super-scandal.
Re:Nonsense by reve_etrange · 2012-09-17 10:07 · Score: 1

Well, isn't Oakland pretty much one big, city-wide ghetto at this point?
No, it isn't, but there is rampant gun crime. Asserting that victims are to blame because they're supposedly "in the projects trying to buy crack" is offensive.

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.: Semper Absurda :.
Re:Nonsense by hkrish4 · 2012-09-17 12:00 · Score: 2

Wait Mr. GeekWithAKnife. I don't know who you are but this is worst insightful text one could type for this post. First delete your impression about India in your mind If(you==Indian){ I feel sorry about the fact that you didn't have clear idea about your nation.} else{ Don't judge India by movies. Visit India and live there and then see what is actually happening there. } Note:It is not the land of homeless people (There are lot of homeless in US but not in Canada). In India, there are about one third of the population who are in poverty. I accept that. But it doesn't mean that government has to keep pushing them up. Those are a third of population who never come up in life even if they are given options. Comparing the policies in India, policies in US doesn't seem quite fascinating to me.(I always had an impression that US would be much better in all terms when compared with India. But it is not as fascinating as it sounds like. There might be lot of things that great happening here). I have seen lot of comments that say like India should focus on poverty rather than these scientific experiments. What do u guys think you are? Marx? for record: I was born and brought up in India and came to US for my grad school (assuming that I can't make into prestigious institute in India. You know why I can't make to those institute bcoz of my caste. It is not easy like here. I have the highest gpa in univ but I can't continue bcoz they are giving opportunities to poor people than me. I did my undergraduate in scholarship and continuing my phd also in scholarship. ) I am successful in my career. I am competitive and very successful than I thought. The same poverty hits me and I am not rich. It's all how you think about yourself. It doesn't have to deal with any country. I had very strong conviction towards my goal. I came to US just because I thought I can do some research. If there is a supercomputer faster than sequoia that going to be there, I bet I will return. so does all Indians. Hope you heard of brain drain and brain gain. Soon that will be the case! P.S: I highly condemn this kind of comments like giving suggesstions that are merely stupid and never appreciating any effort by India.
Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 14:47 · Score: 0

I'd have to say by the metric that most all other countries economies are based off the back of the US. You know, the "One world economy" that was great for everyone but the US? That one that depends on the US? The one that faltered when the US economy did?

I realize that is was US corporations and politicians that let this happen, but it's quite funny to hear countries want to claim that they are making their own way. If the US totally stop doing business in those countries they would fold up quicker then a lawn chair. Is that "metric" enough for you?
Re:Nonsense by cayenne8 · 2012-09-18 02:50 · Score: 1

Asserting that victims are to blame because they're supposedly "in the projects trying to buy crack" is offensive.
Why? It is largely true.
Most everyone getting shot is less than innocent bystander in most circumstances.
You rarely see victims with a rap sheet less than the length of their arm.

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:Nonsense by reve_etrange · 2012-09-18 06:08 · Score: 1

You don't know shit about Oakland, son.

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.: Semper Absurda :.

this is good by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 03:54 · Score: 0

needs one more nuke plant to power it up ... nevermind the farmers : )

Re:this is good by OakDragon · 2012-09-17 04:16 · Score: 1

needs one more nuke plant to power it up ... nevermind the farmers : )
Nope - runs on compressed air!

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Dark Reflection
Re:this is good by semi-extrinsic · 2012-09-17 05:21 · Score: 1

Using invisible unicorns to compress that air, I suppose?
(I'm actually not sure whether you're joking or not, so permission to whoosh granted.)

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Re:this is good by OakDragon · 2012-09-17 05:27 · Score: 1

It was a joke, in reference to this recent Slashdot story.

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Dark Reflection

Crore = 10^7 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 03:55 · Score: 2, Informative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore

Nice to see the editors making sensibly proof-read, accessibly written summaries, rather than the usual treasure hunt for the true meaning.

Re:Crore = 10^7 by 1s44c · 2012-09-17 05:03 · Score: 1

Indeed. The weird Indian numbering system is meaningless for almost everyone outside India. The more common three orders of magnitude system ( thousand, million, billion, trillion ) makes a lot more sense.
Re:Crore = 10^7 by nashv · 2012-09-17 05:12 · Score: 2

It's not that hard. The only difference being that the Indian system uses 10^ odd numbers, more often primes, as a reference.
And thus : 10^0,1,2,3,5,7 all have names - 10^5 being a lakh and 10^7 being a crore. A complete list is rather interesting, showing that the system predates Western mathematical formulations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_large_numbers and having pecularities like bodhisattva ( or ) —10^37218383881977644441306597687849648128.
You gotta ask...why 10^37218383881977644441306597687849648128?!

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Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Re:Crore = 10^7 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:23 · Score: 0

Right, but I don't live in india. "Slashdot - news for nerds, stuff that matters" is in english. Thus I expect english standards to be used. I believe I have a reasonable expectation that the article be written to inform *me*.
Seems like every time I read slashdot, I wonder why the hell I'm still reading slashdot.
Re:Crore = 10^7 by Lobachevsky · 2012-09-17 06:20 · Score: 2

47 milliards rupees in a furlong squared datacenter. There, now it's in English.
Re:Crore = 10^7 by ZombieThoughts · 2012-09-17 11:56 · Score: 1

They did invent zero. Thank you India.
Re:Crore = 10^7 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 16:39 · Score: 0

Something was needed as a software quality multiplier.
Re:Crore = 10^7 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-18 02:03 · Score: 0

The metric system makes more sense to everybody too. Except to those in America. Are you really going to argue on something that "makes sense"? Just because it's the convention in your part of the world doesn't mean it "makes sense" to the rest of the world.

Crores to USD by Aphonia · 2012-09-17 04:00 · Score: 1

1 crore is 10 million, so this comes out to be 875 million USD roughly.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/with-16-petaflops-and-1-6m-cores-doe-supercomputer-is-worlds-fastest/ says that livermore spent 250 mil on sequoia (which seems like a bit of a lowball to me, given the K computer's price at 1 billion), so throwing a lot more money at the problem would seem to give better performance.

Re:Crores to USD by Aphonia · 2012-09-17 04:00 · Score: 1

Crore is a counting number i should say. 1 crore of something is 10 million of that something, not 1 crore INR = 10 million USD.
Re:Crores to USD by Matheus · 2012-09-17 04:09 · Score: 2

You are correct sir. Although apparently since I was last there the value of the Rupee has fallen *severely so...
At current exchange R4,700 Crore ~= $87,231,060.00 USD.
Re:Crores to USD by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 06:19 · Score: 0

You're a factor of ten out. The value in dollars is:
4700 * 10^7 / 53.8851 = 4.7 * 10^10 / 53.8851 = $872,226,274

I'm sure no one else thunk of that by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:01 · Score: 0

I'm sure no one else has thought of making the fastest computer.

Yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

More dick waving.

Obsolescence by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:04 · Score: 2, Interesting

The best part is by the time 2017 rolls around other countries would be doing the same so their fast computer turns out not to be THE FASTEST.

Re:Obsolescence by 1s44c · 2012-09-17 05:07 · Score: 1

By the time 2017 comes your iphone 20s will be about as fast as this supercomputer.
Re:Obsolescence by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:56 · Score: 0

i phone 5s ftw

Considering Moore's law by SpaghettiPattern · 2012-09-17 04:05 · Score: 3, Informative

Considering Moore's law that's just about to be expected.

In 5 years we have 3 x 18 month period. The level of improvement in hardware is multiplies by 2^3. Then I'd expect level of parallelism to affect the process by the same magnitude bringing the total to 2^6 = 64.

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I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)

Re:Considering Moore's law by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:23 · Score: 0

Parallelism is usually an obstacle to be worked around, not a bonus, in computers. I suspect the extra 2^3 comes from the current 1st place probably being a few years old already.
Re:Considering Moore's law by tlhIngan · 2012-09-17 04:36 · Score: 2

Considering Moore's law that's just about to be expected.
In 5 years we have 3 x 18 month period. The level of improvement in hardware is multiplies by 2^3. Then I'd expect level of parallelism to affect the process by the same magnitude bringing the total to 2^6 = 64.
Except Moore's Law only indirectly applies. All it states is that the number of transistors you can squeeze doubles every 18 months or so.
Number of transistors only really is a passing indication of CPU power. Especially these days where the thing limiting the density of transistors is wiring them up - the "random logic" of a CPU is dominated by the wires that interconnect them together.
Moore's Law does however apply to the most transistor dense logic aorund - memory. Memory arrays (volatile and non-volatile) are basically controlled by how close you can pack them together, so every generation you can pack twice as much for twice the storage or make 'em half the price.
Re:Considering Moore's law by unixisc · 2012-09-17 05:17 · Score: 1

For supercomputing, parallelism is not a problem, since you have multiple data sets from different sources being fed into the computer, and being worked on independently by different CPUs. So the problem one has while writing OSs or applications - making them multithreaded or multiprocessed - is not so much of a problem here, simply given the sheer amount of data that has to be grinded.

For these 'fastest' metrics: by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-09-17 04:11 · Score: 2

How well do the 'fastness' metrics used to rank computers in e-peen order capture some of the messier variables of assorted cache speeds and sizes, latencies and throughputs of network interconnects, dubiously general; but very high speed for certain purposes GPU or fpga elements vs. generic CPUs, and so on?

Obviously, the people building these things to get work done have an incentive to make them actually useful; but is the benchmark itself much of a test of dreadful interconnect design or other serious issues, or could you just buy your way to a shiny spot at the top by shoving together enough gigE connected 1Us?

Re:For these 'fastest' metrics: by serviscope_minor · 2012-09-17 04:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

Depends on the test.
The classic LINPACK benchmark will stress most of the parts which will mean the result is a combination of raw FLOPS with memory bandwidth, cache and etc. LINPACK doesn't stress the interconnects particularly highly and is very regular. As a result, it tends to favour computers that have more FLOPS but cheaper interconnets.
That said, it's not terrible, which is why the computers also have the efficiency (theoretical peak FLOPS/actual flops) listed. Compare the Tinhae-1A computer which was heavy on GPUs versus with 46% efficiency the K computer which has lots of wide SIMD cores with a very tightly coupled interconnect which achieved 93%.
So even LINPACK which is generally considered as "too easy to be a useful test" still can distinguish between raw peak FLOPS and sustained performance.
In practice, some tasks will depend heavily on the interconnect. Others, like protein folding are so embarressingly parallel that the interconnect basically a non-issue which is why floding@home works.
IOW YMMV HTH HAND

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:For these 'fastest' metrics: by shadowrat · 2012-09-17 04:57 · Score: 1

More importantly, what do these supercomputers do? i love computers as much as the next guy (or gal) on slashdot, but i'm unaware of anything that they do. they don't seem to be involved in landing robots on mars. they don't seem to be involved in making a self driving car. I guess they will do environmental simulations and then show you the results you want after you tweak the input data enough. Oh, and they can win at jeopardy and chess.
Re:For these 'fastest' metrics: by cwebster · 2012-09-17 05:14 · Score: 4, Informative

Modeling.
Weather modeling (solving navier-stokes and a few other equations on a discrete cartesian grid or on a spherical grid in spectral space). Add in land surface models, ocean models, data assimilation, chemical processes, and then crank the resolution way up and you need a lot of power.
DNS (direct numerical simulation) -- if you want to simulate a fluid flow with turbulence and you want to resolve the turbulence explicitly you need to have a grid spacing in your model that is smaller than the kolmogorov scale. For some flows this may produce a grid spacing measured in millimeters. If you want any decent sized model domain, this produces a lot of grid points.
Monte-carlo type simulations -- i.e., run a simple simulation but do it 1e50 times to amass a statistical representation of the process.
and lots of other types of modeling. Basically if you have a set of partial differential equations that tell us something and you need to solve them numerically (no analytic solutions, etc) and need to do it on very large domains at high resolution and your neighbor grid dependencies are such that your problem is parallel, then a supercomputer is for you.
Re:For these 'fastest' metrics: by lister+king+of+smeg · 2012-09-17 05:29 · Score: 1

They model protein folding, cosmic events such as the big bang, creation of black holes, stellar collapse and creation,they are used in modeling atomic bomb blasts, and better electrical grids, they are used to work out highly complex math and number crunching such as finding holes in encryption schems, they are used for analyisis of high speed partical excelerator data. Pretty much anything that requires lots of compex math.

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---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Re:For these 'fastest' metrics: by semi-extrinsic · 2012-09-17 05:42 · Score: 1

A few points:
* The weather report
* Finding oil and gas
* Supernova research
* Big bang simulations
* Designing rockets for the space program
* Simulating nuclear fusion

In general, solving large problems where there is turbulence, other complicated phenomena or the data set is hard to search

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for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
Re:For these 'fastest' metrics: by P-niiice · 2012-09-17 06:10 · Score: 1

my midsection is also embarassingly parallel.
Re:For these 'fastest' metrics: by shadowrat · 2012-09-17 07:09 · Score: 1

got it. stuff you don't hear about on the news.
Re:For these 'fastest' metrics: by Robotbeat · 2012-09-17 10:43 · Score: 1

They are, in fact, used for landing robots on Mars. I worked on a supercomputer with my professor during my physics undergrad working on fluid-structure-interaction (FSI) code. The supersonic parachute used to land Curiosity was simulated using a FSI code, a simulation which my professor helped with. Cars these days often use fluid dynamics during the design process and structure code as well (which can be just as complicated when you're simulating a collision, as is often done these days).
There's really a lot of room for processing power and memory growth... Just think about it. If I want to halve the grid spacing, I generally have to double the number of points (or elements) in each dimension, plus I have to generally halve my timestep as well (for numerical stability). So, for every halving of the grid spacing, I need 16 times the processing power and at least 8 times the memory (and 16 times the memory if I want to keep all the timesteps). So, it may take a good 6-10 years between being able to halve your grid spacing (if you include the fact that computers don't scale up in performance--especially at the superconductor level--as fast as Moore's law says you scale in per-transistor cost). And if you're doing a fluid or solids simulation, you usually want as small of a grid spacing as feasible. At this rate, the time between a 1cm grid spacing and a 1mm grid spacing in performance would be 30-40 years, a whole career. And that's assuming Moore's law continues.

Difference between 2007 and 2012 was only 34x grea by Turboglh · 2012-09-17 04:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

http://www.top500.org/lists/2007/11
http://www.top500.org/lists/2012/06
Should be interesting to see them double the rate of growth over the preceding five years

And there will be by onyxruby · 2012-09-17 04:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

One supercomputer to outsource them all

Re:And there will be by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:47 · Score: 0

DEY TURK OUR JERBS
If it's okay for blue collar Americans to lose their jobs to illegals from central and south america, it's good enough for pasty, antisocial computer janitors *cough* I mean IT professionals *cough*.
Re:And there will be by RicktheBrick · 2012-09-17 06:37 · Score: 1

I have read that the Sequoia supercomputer can do 2 Gigaflops per watt, I think this is at least an order of magnitude greater than any home computer. So when they get into the Exaflop range I would think that they would again be better by an order of magnitude. So that would mean they could do 2 Teraflops per watt. My question is what are they going to do with all this power? I would think that the federal government would get a Watson like computer for both the executive and legislative branches. I would think it would run a site where everyone could log on and express their views and get a response based on the beliefs of either the President or an individual congressman. Even today how many programs are based on a computer's output? I am sure that the CBO depends on computers to generate its reports. So how much longer do we rely on the middle man and just rely on the computers?
Re:And there will be by SuricouRaven · 2012-09-17 07:53 · Score: 1

Wouldn't work. The views of a politician depend upon who he believes is listening to the answer.
Re:And there will be by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 12:55 · Score: 0

The sibling is being flippant, but isn't entirely wrong. The problem with automating decision making is that there is not a clear way to decide what the best choice is. Part of why people often seem to be talking past each other in political arguments is that they (or their target audience) have different philosophies which lead to different objective functions for what legislation is good. In general, any interesting decision in politics is a wicked problem.
On the other hand, I do wish we had a better understanding in our political discourse that that is the case. Getting a Watson-like computer good enough to actually answer questions about the belief systems of different politicians and why they are for or against certain legislation would be very interesting.
(The CBO is a good example of a part of the process that is relatively objective. It would be rather difficult get to a computer to do its job, but I'm sure you are right that they probably use computers heavily in their work.)

I'll believe it when I see it by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:25 · Score: 0

Just like the $30 tablets that were announced and then cost $150. Let's see what they build

Please it is a Joke by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:28 · Score: 1

Our Minister Kapil, is a good comedian. So please dont take this seriously.
Check out what happened to his $35 laptop! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aakash_(tablet)
Our closed room scientists in CDAC will have plenty of money to play around for 5 years!
Thank god, Minister Kapil wont be there that long.

Re:Please it is a Joke by hihihihi · 2012-09-17 04:50 · Score: 2

Our Minister Kapil, is a good comedian... Minister Kapil wont be there that long.
hey... celebrating world optimism day today are we?
you see, just like managers, these dickheads are expected to come up with "next big idea", spent a lot of money and move on. and that is what this is, just like the akash tablet project, the complete literacy project, remove proverty project and what not.

--
everyone downmodding this post will be prosecuted for reading my post without first buying a license!!!
Re:Please it is a Joke by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:08 · Score: 0

Our Minister Kapil, is a good comedian. So please dont take this seriously.
Check out what happened to his $35 laptop! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aakash_(tablet)
Our closed room scientists in CDAC will have plenty of money to play around for 5 years!
Thank god, Minister Kapil wont be there that long.
Also the same guy who wanted services like Facebook and Twitter to be unrealistically policing user content to ensure that it doesn't offend Indian sensibilities.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/kapil-sibal-on-facebook-google-don-t-want-censorship-but-content-must-be-screened-155706
He doesn't want censorship. He simply wants these sites to remove anything that could cause offence - such as posts or images critical of public figures. He's pretty clear in demonstrating two things:
1) He has no idea what censorship means.
2) He has no idea how the social media thing is working, and the impracticalities of requiring hosts to censor anything that offends someone somewhere in India.

Re:A big help by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:31 · Score: 0

Is it a corollary of Turing-completeness if it can model the money flow from all the bribes and backhanders involved in it's own construction?

what kind of chips... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 04:48 · Score: 0

Does anyone know what type of CPUs they'd likely use?

I hope they further develop their power grid before they turn that thing on...

Re:what kind of chips... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:58 · Score: 0

corn based!!

PARAM and beyond by unixisc · 2012-09-17 04:57 · Score: 4, Informative

India's current supercomputer - one that it's developed since the 80s - is the PARAM, which has had 6 generations to date. The first was based on the Inmos Transputer, the second on an Intel i860, the third on a SuperSPARC II (and it even had an Alpha variant), the fourth on an UltraSPARC II, the fifth on an IBM POWER 4, and the most recent - unveiled in 2008 - was based on the Intel Xeon (Tigerton 73xx). They are currently working on one that's supposed to break the 1 petaflop barrier (that would be 10 crore crore flops for Indians). So this new announcement would be the successor to that.

So it's not like they're new @ this, and what is impressive is that they've used a wide variety of CPUs from different vendors. For this next one, they might want to do that w/ an Itanium III or a POWER7 (unless POWER8 is anywhere close). It would seem that for that, they might get some Intel/HP expertise to help w/ that. I have no idea how good they are @ writing compilers. But yeah, planning a supercomputer based on this CPU and tossing in enough of them should enable them to achieve that goal. Put Debian on it, and then use it for whatever they need - weather forecasting, nuclear simulations or whatever they want to use it for. A lot of the 52 PARAMs that they've manufactured & sold have been sold to other countries.

I just wish that aside from the Indian government, there were a few companies in India that made supercomputers.

Re:PARAM and beyond by jmerlin · 2012-09-17 05:29 · Score: 1

How long until I can wear that super computer on my wrist?
Re:PARAM and beyond by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 07:35 · Score: 0

I just wish that aside from the Indian government, there were a few companies in India that made supercomputers.
The computational arm of Tata Sons have the Eka, which is 172 teraflops and is 58 in the Top 500 list.
Re:PARAM and beyond by unixisc · 2012-09-17 08:14 · Score: 1

So it looks like of the 3 organizations in India that have supercomputers, 2 are government. Wish there were 1 or 2 more private companies that made them - say Reliance and someone else.
Re:PARAM and beyond by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 08:23 · Score: 0

This is a tough call. Can India afford to build such a computer? Or can India afford not to build such a computer. I have no doubt of the intellectual abilities of Indian scholars. But do they have a use for such a device other than theoretical? Is it possible that possessing such a computer is a form of advertising India's abilities to the world? For a nation with so much poverty and suffering there needs to be some real soul searching over funding such a device. If we had a clue as to exactly what they intend to do with such a machine it would enlighten us all. We also have other issues that leap to mind. If India can build such a device should Iran be allowed to do so as well? Or what would we do if India started selling very high powered super computers to other nations such as Iran? Or even closer to the point how about Pakistan which seems to have a very two faced mode of government? Can the US afford to have a clearly superior line of computers in place?
Re:PARAM and beyond by unixisc · 2012-09-17 15:56 · Score: 4, Informative

As the history part of the wiki link shows, India originally wanted to get Crays from the US, but couldn't due to a technology embargo by the US. Which actually was justified @ the time, given that India was one of the main technology partners of the Soviet Union and would voluntarily give them things that the KGB couldn't steal from the West (India originally wanted to buy this in the mid 80s). So it's not like they wanted it for dick waving rights - I doubt that any of the first 6 PARAMs were #1 @ any point in time. Weather forecasting was initially the main thing, followed by other things. The US was @ one time concerned about India's use of nuclear technology for making nukes, but in the last agreement b/w the 2, India agreed to separate out its military usage of nuclear technology from its commercial usage. In any case, since these are home grown supercomputers, India could well use a few for nuclear simulations, and there's nothing the US could do.
As for whether India should have nukes when it has the problem of poverty and related issues, India first lost a war against China in 1962 (started by the latter), and IIRC, China was either a nuclear power then, or became one since. India's initial interest in becoming a nuclear power happened as a result of that. Pakistan, in turn, decided to be one so that it could seize back Kashmir, and today is one, but they have been becoming increasingly extreme over the years since 9/11, and are a genuine threat to India. So India would be criminally negligient to its own people if it didn't put a few supercomputers out there to do the nuclear weapons simulations that they need to to ensure that it has a good deterrent. Of course, w/ an Islamic country, even that may not be a deterrent, but since not all Muslims have suicidal fantasies, having that has some likelihood that they'll never be used.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2012-09-17 04:58 · Score: 2, Funny

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:They should build more showers instead. by turkeyfeathers · 2012-09-17 05:02 · Score: 0

That, sir, is offensive... my dog showers daily.

IT minister in India built that by mynameiskhan · 2012-09-17 05:13 · Score: 1

The problem with India is, "India wants to do it". It is not the scientists or researchers in a university or institute in India who will do it, but a telecommunication minister. Till this mentality dissipates and the government bets on the independent institutions in India to come up with such headlines, India is going nowhere.

Re:IT minister in India built that by fiannaFailMan · 2012-09-17 05:43 · Score: 2

The problem with India is, "India wants to do it". It is not the scientists or researchers in a university or institute in India who will do it, but a telecommunication minister. Till this mentality dissipates and the government bets on the independent institutions in India to come up with such headlines, India is going nowhere.
Yeah. As I sit here posting on the internet via the World Wide Web I have to ask, what innovations has government ever produced?

--
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Re:IT minister in India built that by SuricouRaven · 2012-09-17 07:56 · Score: 1

Aside from the six previous supercomputers their government has built, you mean?

True, there are some things the private sector is better-suited for. But you make the mistake of infering from this that governments are incapable of doing anything.
Re:IT minister in India built that by mynameiskhan · 2012-09-21 00:53 · Score: 0

I agree with what you are saying about the role of government. But here is the thing. There are some fabulous scientists at the IISc and ISRO which are all primarily research oriented. All the supercomputers that India has (all five) are products of one or a group a scientists there who submit a proposal for funding the assembly of a supercomputer and clearly explaining where and what for they will use it. That includes defense purposes. Hence the DRDO funding. You get in touch with the minister and ask him to give the proposal a push. Minister convenes a press conf. and tells every one "Indian Govt" is going to build that. And thus we end with a news that says India is building a SC. The scientists who put in hours of working out the details and proposal... poof.

Distinction between computer and cluster? by BlueCoder · 2012-09-17 05:36 · Score: 1

I don't really see a distinction. Computer chips keep adding cores. It's all networked together at varying speeds be it bus or Ethernet signaling. It's all cloud one way or another.

The really impressive part? by JudgeFurious · 2012-09-17 05:37 · Score: 1

They're going to build it completely out of Nan. It will be fast and delicious!

--
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.

Re:The really impressive part? by CQDX · 2012-09-17 06:22 · Score: 1

And when the benchmarks spit out a bunch of NaNs, I don't think the supercomputing community will be impressed.
Re:The really impressive part? by fatphil · 2012-09-17 07:20 · Score: 1

I hope the result of the computation won't be NaN.
I expect to see the results published at the HotChipatees conference.
I wonder if they'll use off-the-shelf processors, or build their own Sag-ALU, or even utilise Ghee-P.U.s

Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.

--
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863

I was going to say.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:39 · Score: 0

They might want to spend that money on the power infrastructure before they spend it on a supercomputer that will tax said infrastructure even further than it has in recent months.

Multi-month long power outages just to run a supercomputer? I think not.

Re:same old same old by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 05:40 · Score: 1

Yeah, that's one of my favorite quotes from the bible:

"Fuck the poor." - Jesus Christ, New American Version

Mod parent troll by fiannaFailMan · 2012-09-17 05:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

You're responding to a post about a:

(*) Technical innovation in a developing country
( ) Product shipped to a developing market
( ) General discussion about IT in the devbeloping world

The location is:

( ) Africa
(*) India
( ) Bangladesh
( ) China
( ) Somewhere else in Asia
( ) South America
( ) Central America
( ) Other _unspecified_

You're objecting to it on the basis that:

(*) Poverty hasn't been eliminated in that country yet
( ) American jobs will be lost

Your argument is bogus because:

(*) Poverty hasn't been eliminated in the developed world either, that doesn't mean we should halt all technological research
(*) This will not adversely affect any efforts to alleviate poverty
(*) This will help to alleviate poverty
( ) Poverty in that country isn't as widespread as you say it is
( ) The US does not have a divine right to keep all the cool jobs

--
Drill baby drill - on Mars

Re:Mod parent troll by ra1n85 · 2012-09-17 07:27 · Score: 1

I believe the original post's argument was that India would be better served spending the money on basic infrastructure. While a supercomputer is great, it's not going to pay the same dividends that clean drinking water and reliable power would. Not only do those very basic utilities reduce healthcare costs, they are productivity multipliers and would benefit the Indian economy greatly.
Re:Mod parent troll by fiannaFailMan · 2012-09-17 07:52 · Score: 2

I believe the original post's argument was that India would be better served spending the money on basic infrastructure. While a supercomputer is great, it's not going to pay the same dividends that clean drinking water and reliable power would. Not only do those very basic utilities reduce healthcare costs, they are productivity multipliers and would benefit the Indian economy greatly.
*Rolleyes*
FFS sake would you people give it a fucking rest?!
What the hell is it about India that brings out the "social programs and public works are the answer to the country's problems" crowd who always seem to be skeptical of exactly that sort of spending when it comes to the USA? There are problems with basic infrastructure in England but I don't see anyone suggesting that their R&D budget should be slashed and the funds diverted to roads, hospitals, schools and all the other usual "think of the children" suspects!
Read my lips and listen very carefully because this bears repeating:
Investing in R&D is the best way to lift people out of poverty.
Investing in R&D is the best way to lift people out of poverty.
Investing in R&D is the best way to lift people out of poverty.
Investing in R&D is the best way to lift people out of poverty.
Investing in R&D is the best way to lift people out of poverty.
Capiche?

--
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Re:Mod parent troll by ra1n85 · 2012-09-17 08:07 · Score: 1

Isn't a supercomputer a "public works" project? Thank you for repeating your argument. I can now see it multiple times. Although, I am interested in hearing about how a supercomputer is going to lift Indians out of poverty.
Re:Mod parent troll by fiannaFailMan · 2012-09-17 11:19 · Score: 1

Isn't a supercomputer a "public works" project?
Thank you for repeating your argument. I can now see it multiple times. Although, I am interested in hearing about how a supercomputer is going to lift Indians out of poverty.
Yeah. What the hell did Apollo ever do to make life better for Americans, eh?
FFS.

--
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Re:Mod parent troll by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 15:30 · Score: 0

Hey China has poverty too. But the idea of creating new technology, jobs and manufacturing techniques drive these ambitions. Corruption will not be removed anywhere in the world including USA. What % of GDP goes to corruption matters. India wants to learn new technologies like China is doing/copying. USA has a 300 years of history and violently took all the properties of the Native Indians, so progress in the US can not be compared to India. India was looted by Arabs, Turks, Iranian, Mongolians, Dutch, Portuguese, French and British for about 900 years. So with a huge population and shortage of wealth it will take more time to achieve the Western standard of living. But invention is part of Indian tradition.
Re:Mod parent troll by ra1n85 · 2012-09-17 22:00 · Score: 1

Your comments seem to be long on rhetoric/petulance/vulgarity and short on any data. We'll try something, because as abrasive as your posts are, I would be interested in hearing more about your argument - I'll make a cogent argument, and you can make one too. It's called a civil dialogue.
I believe that India would be better served developing more reliable and robust power and water utilities because it would:
-Drive healthcare costs down
-Increase productivity in the Indian economy by giving industry what it needs to thrive, namely power and water
-Ensure a greater portion of the money is spent domestically, rather than a supercomputer which would involve significant foreign remittances
-Create a stable environment to attract foreign investment

Not quite by gentryx · 2012-09-17 06:04 · Score: 1

Sorry, but you're milking the cow twice: process shrinks allow us to pack more transistors on a chip. This would amount to a growth of about 2^3 = 8 in a period of 5 years, as you correctly estimate. But this already includes the increase in parallelism. Today's supercomputers apparently don't grow much more racks:

Roadrunner: 296 racks
Jaguar: 150 racks IIRC
K computer: 768 racks (huge exception)
Sequoia (Blue Gene/Q): 96 racks

The reason why we can't just buy an infinite amount of racks and network them is the MTBF. In the K computer the MTBF means that node failures occur every couple of hours, rendering longer full system runs almost impossible.

--
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp

Re:Hope sanitation will be a national priority, to by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 06:07 · Score: 0

nope, thats the population control policy

indeed, a bit like US Imperial measurements by fantomas · 2012-09-17 06:35 · Score: 1

Indeed, a bit like the Imperial (non-metric) distance measuring system is meaningless for almost everyone outside the USA. The more common decimal three orders of magnitude system (millimeters, meters, kilometers) makes a lot more sense. But we try to get by.

Re:indeed, a bit like US Imperial measurements by 1s44c · 2012-09-18 01:46 · Score: 1

Indeed, a bit like the Imperial (non-metric) distance measuring system is meaningless for almost everyone outside the USA. The more common decimal three orders of magnitude system (millimeters, meters, kilometers) makes a lot more sense. But we try to get by.
This is of course true. Everything is easier in metric so hanging onto a dumb system that everyone else has abandoned due to its awkwardness is just, well, dumb. But at least most of the world had some idea what a mile or yard is, if they don't know how long is it they at least know it's a measurement of distance.
Crore is just meaningless to almost everyone.

Mr Fusion by KingPin27 · 2012-09-17 06:45 · Score: 1

So Doc Brown is going to bring us the MR Fusion Upgrade -- supposed to have taken place in 2012. Maybe India could use the MR Fusion to power their new Super Computer?? It would kill 2 birds with 1 stone...........Just sayin.

--
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"

And it will only cost $35!!! by daboochmeister · 2012-09-17 06:46 · Score: 1

Yeah, this is just about as believable as the Aakash being produced for $35. That they SAY they're going to do it shouldn't be read to imply they actually can.

--
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh ... never mind." Dave Bucci

Re:And it will only cost $35!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 07:19 · Score: 0

Lying and boasting is pretty much the Indian way of life.

Done! by Adam+Morton · 2012-09-17 07:20 · Score: 1

Just run a distributed computing client on every call center machine...

In unrelated news... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 07:48 · Score: 0

I plan on growing my penis to 13" by 2015!

Re:In unrelated news... by mynameiskhan · 2012-09-17 07:54 · Score: 1

Quoting judgefurious above, "They're going to build it completely out of Nan. It will be fast and delicious!" Are you planning on the same too? Related to the news.: Who knows if naan is a semiconductor!?!?

Nothing to do with Poverty. by nagasrinivas · 2012-09-17 08:19 · Score: 1

Basic necessities, infrastructure and other issues that people pointed out are issue in India - but how does that equate to wasting money on building a supercomputer? Would you rather have it that they spend much more buying when they can build it locally for cheaper? Also after all the dust of 'they should rather help the poor instead' argument has settled you can see that despite so many issue they still need to predict the weather.

Popular Politicking by ra1n85 · 2012-09-17 08:41 · Score: 1

The politicians in India are talking about investments in space and supercomputers because its sexy and gets people's attention. Whether or not these investments are going to materialize, or if they're even wise, remains to be seen. Perhaps all my fellow Americans will read about an Indian supercomputer one day, while we enjoy the comforts of our future lives on Moonbase Gingrich.

Wow! by excelsior_gr · 2012-09-17 09:51 · Score: 0

I hadn't realized that you needed so much computing power to run a call center.

Brown Outs Anybody? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 09:57 · Score: 0

When they turn on the supercomputer will they turn off the rest of the country. Seriously, power consumption and density is a serious limiting factor. Those nice brownout a little while ago do not bode well.

They can build the fastest by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-17 10:28 · Score: 0

India can build the fastest computer, but do they have the reliable power to keep that machine running for 24hrs a day 365 days a year?

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India Plans To Build Fastest Supercomputer By 2017

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