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China Building a 100-petaflop Supercomputer Using Domestic Processors
concealment writes "As the U.S. launched what's expected to be the world's fastest supercomputer at 20 petaflops, China is building a machine that is intended to be five times faster when it is deployed in 2015. China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer will run at 100 petaflops (quadrillion floating-point calculations per second), according to the Guangzhou Supercomputing Center, where the machine will be housed. Tianhe-2 could help keep China competitive with the future supercomputers of other countries, as industry experts estimate machines will start reaching 1,000-petaflop performance by 2018."
And, naturally, it's planned to use a domestically developed MIPS processor
Keep telling yourself that. I am sure you will sleep better at night...
Because that's all America does anymore.
Honestly, given the nature of Chinese copying, plus the kind of overstated and shoddy output we've historically seen from State-Capitalist projects from Soviet governments, I think that the burden is more on the Chinese to make this boast a reality.
Building massive, highly functional supercomputers is not child's play, regardless of your beowulf clusters of hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants experience. It's one thing to cluster a few computers together and to have very specific programs that do very specific kinds of jobs, it's another matter entirely to have hundreds or thousands of microprocessors working in tandem and to be able to simply even allocate their tasks, let alone program for them. There's a reason why every city government has their own supercomputer, they're difficult.
The Chinese government has the resources to build such a computer, but only if they work against corruption and don't delude themselves when they have difficulties in an effort for every middle manager to safe face.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Chinese technology has already gone much farther than you give them credit, and the natural tendency is for them to surpass stagnated US sooner or later. Considering how US has put in place so many impediments to innovation with the excuse of "helping innovation" that is just a matter of time.
And please, although the Chinese government is very corrupt, it is not more corrupt than US government or US corporations.
There's no reason why the West shouldn't accept China as an equal. They're rational, hardworking, and contribute to modern life. They can be our friends.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the UK became worried and self-concious about the rise of Germany. Soon enough, they were diplomatic enemies, and then the war started. And yet, after the war - and its followup - the UK found out that life didn't end when Germany was as strong or stronger than them.
This is the beginning of the 21st century, and the US is worried and self-concious about the rise of China. Let's please not fuck things up like we did last time.
And please, although the Chinese government is very corrupt, it is not more corrupt than US government or US corporations.
It's very fashionable to overstate the problems of the US. Even with all it's problems it remains one of the most successful systems in the world on any number of levels.
That said, the rampant corruption on China isn't the kind that will interfere with things like building a supercomputer. Quite the opposite in fact. Need a neighborhood demolished or workers expropriated? No problem.
Where as the much smaller level of corruption in the US is almost precisely targeted to screw these kinds of projects. Congressman can't tack on some random spending for their district? Screw over the whole project just to build a reputation so everyone bends over next time.
the natural tendency is for them to surpass stagnated US sooner or later
Probably later. Its common for Chinese fanbois to paint the US as some stagnant, bloated, lethargic country, and in some ways it is, but not in technology. The US still leads the world in technical innovation, and China is still playing catchup, and will for some time. Militarily China is 20 years behind in submarine technology, has one aircraft carrier (Russian surplus), is just now introducing stealth technology in its aircraft, and still sends most of its elite students to US schools for hi-tech education. Oh, and lets not forget the army of hackers the Chinese government STILL employs to spy on American hi-tech corporations right now.
NATURAL tendancy? How is that? 100 years ago China was nation of drug addicts beholden to the British Empire. Natural tendancy my ass. The US is mired in debt and a stuck bureaucracy right now, but to count it out is a bit premature.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
USA is stagnant but not because it lacks military technology, it does not. It spends more on military than anybody. USA spends more on military than the next top 10 countries combined.
So what? That's not the point, USSR spent everything on military, I mean every non-trivial productive facility had some military application. Where is the country?
To have a sound economy the point is not to spend insane amounts of money on military, the point is to allow the people to save their money and invest it in any way shape or form they themselves desire, they and not some tyrannical technocratic government with a one track mind.
China has the factories and those factories creates everything you buy. USA has 50 or so Billion USD per month trade deficit, had it for decades. That means USA needs to either borrow,k tax or print the difference, to 'afford' this spending ('afford' in quotes, because printing money to buy something does not mean you can afford it, it just means the seller is not recognizing how stupid the transaction is from his POV, he'll never get his money worth of products out of you back).
It doesn't matter if USA 'leads in military technology', what matters is that 90% of all seafood is brought from Asia, and who knows how many other consumer products (you can try and check the inventory in your local Walmart, see what the real percentage of Chinese goods is to other goods, especially to American goods, and then there is the problem of components in whatever American goods that are made, and then tools and machinery, etc.)
You think stealth aircraft carrier with submarine nuclear diving capacity and tachion propulsion system is what a country needs in order to have a good economy?
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