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US Pens $200 Million Deal For Massive Nuclear Security-Focused Supercomputer

Posted by timothy on from the get-calculatin' dept.

An anonymous reader writes For the first time in over twenty years of supercomputing history, a chipmaker [Intel] has been awarded the contract to build a leading-edge national computing resource. This machine, expected to reach a peak performance of 180 petaflops, will provide massive compute power to Argonne National Laboratory, which will receive the HPC gear in 2018. Supercomputer maker Cray, which itself has had a remarkable couple of years contract-wise in government and commercial spheres, will be the integrator and manufacturer of the "Aurora" super. This machine will be a next-generation variant of its "Shasta" supercomputer line. The new $200 million supercomputer is set to be installed at Argonne's Leadership Computing Facility in 2018, rounding out a trio of systems aimed at bolstering nuclear security initiatives as well as pushing the performance of key technical computing applications valued by the Department of Energy and other agencies.

41 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Not bad by pla · · Score: 1

    Wow, just imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!

    / Dating myself
    // Hurry up, Rosie, or we'll miss the movie!

    1. Re:Not bad by Zordak · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wow, just imagine a Beowulf cluster of these! / Dating myself // Hurry up, Rosie, or we'll miss the movie!

      So behind the times! The hip new kids ask if it runs Crysis. (Alternative: Yo, dawg! We clustered your cluster so you can cluster while you cluster! Also, all your petaflops are belong to us. In Soviet Natalie Portman, Beowulf clusters you! Did I miss anything?)

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    2. Re:Not bad by oodaloop · · Score: 1

      But does it run linux?

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    3. Re:Not bad by Zordak · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, it runs Windows 8. Most of that $200 million is per-processor license fees.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    4. Re:Not bad by ianezz · · Score: 1

      Did I miss anything?

      Bet you can fit two of them in the Slashdot cruiser, unless CowboyNeal loaded the trunk with hot grits.

    5. Re:Not bad by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 1

      I think it may run Crysis. If you check its IP with a ping, it responds with,"Would you like to play a game?"

      --
      God spoke to me
    6. Re: Not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Umm, it *is* a Beowulf cluster

      Yeah, so? Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of them.

    7. Re:Not bad by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      you must be gnu here.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  2. Re:But... by oodaloop · · Score: 1

    Why bother?

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  3. Was IBM never a chip maker?! by Henriok · · Score: 1

    Remember IBM supercomputer chips like the BlueGene family, Cell processor and various other POWER processors? IBM has been building supercomputers for the U.S. Government since forever and they only recently stopped making their own chips when they sold off their fabbing business to GloFo.

    --

    - Henrik

    - when the Shadows descend -
    1. Re:Was IBM never a chip maker?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yup, and the amazing technology and resources that permit the kind of productivity to let the parasites take over, never ever helps out the common man... We still need to "work" 40 hours a week or more, while in the 19th century they were able to go from 100 hour workweeks to 40 with steam-driven technology.

    2. Re:Was IBM never a chip maker?! by tomhath · · Score: 1

      The Power processors in BlueGene were described as having "modest" performance. The graphics coprocessors were what made it fast.

    3. Re:Was IBM never a chip maker?! by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      never ever helps out the common man

      A modern $200 video card has more raw processing power than any supercomputer built before 2000.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    4. Re:Was IBM never a chip maker?! by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      We still need to "work" 40 hours a week or more, while in the 19th century they were able to go from 100 hour workweeks to 40 with unionized workers

      Wal-Mart and Massey Energy would be quite happy to pay their workers in company scrip and force them to live in company towns, if they could, in today's world. They don't because they can't - and they can't because unions forced reforms like weekends, a 40 hour work week, and a minimum wage.

    5. Re: Was IBM never a chip maker?! by Henriok · · Score: 1

      No BlueGene supercomputer used GPUs as accelerators. Their point was to joind a very large ammount of cpus off, as you say, "moderate performance", but with excellent performace per watt into unparallelled computeing power density.

      --

      - Henrik

      - when the Shadows descend -
  4. As part of the validation runs... by Glasswire · · Score: 2

    ... before they crank out the 180 petaflop score on Linpack (which officially would put them at the top of the Top 500 Supercomputer list), they're going to mine all the remaining Bitcoins. :-) Not sure that will pay for the cluster though.

    1. Re:As part of the validation runs... by johanwanderer · · Score: 1

      Someone should benchmark this against Mechanical Turk. It would be interesting to see how things stack up.

    2. Re:As part of the validation runs... by slashmydots · · Score: 1

      Every 1400 blocks or something like that, the difficulty adjusts so they'd get burned as soon as they hit the next difficulty adjustment.

    3. Re:As part of the validation runs... by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

      Actually the bitcoin network reached over 1 exaflop (equiv.) some time ago and has since passed that mark. As slashmydots says, the network self-adjusts.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    4. Re:As part of the validation runs... by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 1

      Except the Bitcoin Network already runs at 324 Petahash/second, and each hash computation requires many floating point operations - 128 rounds of applying a complex hash function on several hundred bytes of data. Aurora competing for bitcoins won't make a significant difference in the network hash rate, it is too puny. The network already runs at ~1 million petaflops by dint of custom designed mining chips that perform the necessary calculations in hardware, massively parallel in each chip. Then you aggregate server rooms full of these chips into a mining farm.

  5. 20 years by ShakaUVM · · Score: 4, Informative

    >>For the first time in over twenty years of supercomputing history, a chipmaker [Intel] has been awarded the contract to build a leading-edge national computing resource.

    That's bullshit. Multiple supercomputers were built for nuclear security that were constructed after 1995.

    I worked at the San Diego Super Computer Center during this time period, and could get access to them to run computations occasionally. Kinda neat.

    ASCI Red (1.3 teraflops) was built by Intel in 1997 at Sandia, upgraded to 2.4tf in 1999:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

    ASCI Blue Pacific (3.9 teraflops) was built by IBM in 1998 at LLNL:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

    ASCI Blue Mountain (3.1 teraflops) was built by SGI in 1998 at Los Alamos:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

    ASCI Q (7.7 teraflops) replaced it in 2003:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

    ASCI White (12 teraflops) was an IBM box built in 2001 at LLNL:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

    ASCI Purple / ASC Purple (100 teraflops) replaced it in 2005:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

    Red Storm (36 teraflops in 2005, 101 teraflops in 2006, 204 teraflops in 2008) was built by Cray at Sandia in 2005:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

    Blue Gene (which are a whole line of supercomputers since the 90s continuing to the present day) have been built in different places, including Argonne and have hit 17 pflops and hold half the top10 list of supercomputers:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

    I did some of my Master's thesis on the SDSC Blue Gene supercomputer. Good times.

    But yeah, anyway, the article is factually wrong.

    1. Re:20 years by grimmjeeper · · Score: 1

      The point is, it's a chip company, not a supercomputer company, that got the contract. All of your examples are of computer companies (IBM, Cray, Digital, etc.) getting the contract. In this case it's a chip company (Intel) that doesn't usually build the actual computers.

      Sure, Cray is involved. But the contract went to Intel from what I understand of the article.

    2. Re: 20 years by ralphsiegler · · Score: 1

      They made vector supercomputers but we have those on a chip now; so of course aggregating the products of chip and board vendors is the norm

    3. Re:20 years by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      IBM makes chips!

    4. Re:20 years by ShakaUVM · · Score: 1

      >The point is, it's a chip company, not a supercomputer company, that got the contract. All of your examples are of computer companies (IBM, Cray, Digital, etc.) getting the contract. In this case it's a chip company (Intel) that doesn't usually build the actual computers.

      Re-read my list. Intel built one of the ASCI Machines. IBM is also a chip manufacturer (they did, in fact, create the chips for some of their supercomputers). Cray and Digital were also chip makers, though IIRC Cray was out of the business at this point in time.

    5. Re:20 years by ShakaUVM · · Score: 1

      >This one also isn't being used for nuclear security work. It's all open science runs for the Office of Science.

      So you're saying the title is wrong, too?

  6. Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by darkmeridian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The computers are probably part of an effort to make "safer" nuclear bombs without nuclear testing. Our warheads are now decades old. They need to be rebuilt and redesigned to institute safer technologies. Many warheads do not have inert explosives, which means that the warheads may become dirty bombs during a fire. We have created insensitive munitions that will not explode even when dropped or burnt. These newer explosives have different properties that require testing with computers to simulate.

    --
    A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
    1. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why the fuck people even bring it up?

      Just to get your goat of course ;^)

      But seriously, even if so called "dirty-bombs" don't cause any more serious damage than a conventional bomb of a similar size, the fact that measurable radiation is strewn about is enough of a reason to attempt this as it ups the terrorism effect.

      Look how a few becquerels of radiation from recently Fukushima on the US pacific coast is making people crazy, just imagine if it was reported that 100's of millions of Bqs were detected Times Square (as people don't realize their granite counters emit 1000's of Bqs)...

    2. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

      Actually we have a lot of nukes which could detonate (i.e. a full yield nuclear detonation) accidentally. It's a common misconception that nukes can't accidentally detonate. This is only true with designs that use multi-point explosive lenses. But to make warheads small enough to fit inside a missile, two-point detonation schemes were developed, and these have a very significant likelihood of accidentally going off in just the right way to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. A large part of current nuclear stewardship is making sure that these nukes don't go off in a military base and take out a city by accident.

      Nukes are incredibly dangerous to keep lying around. Theft, terrorism, and accidental detonation are just some of the risks. The only sane option is disarmament, otherwise the bomb is going to go off in our fumbling hands sooner or later.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    3. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

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

      This is the design used in most modern nuclear warhead primaries, including all current missile-based warheads. The problem is that accidental detonation of one of the points could lead to compression to a level sufficient for a nuclear chain reaction. Some designs try to avoid this by either careful design of the geometry (the Swan primary used in the XW-45 warhead is an example) or use of insensitive explosives. For a few warhead designs, space constraints forced that these safety mechanisms be abandoned. I forget if it was the W-76 or W-78 or possibly some other one, and a lot of information relating to nuclear weapons that used to be publicly available is no longer on the web.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    4. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      The only sane option is mutual disarmament

      Even if this were an option, the end result is still that more nukes will be built.

      If nobody in the world has nukes, an obvious good strategy is for your side to start building them. This is just a high stakes multi-way prisoners dilemma. In multi--way prisoners dilemma there are too many players for there to be a reasonable expectation of full cooperation.

      The best result is if all of the nuke owners don't use them, because there being nuke owners are inevitable. Thats what we've got right now, No sense shaking it up in defiance of the inevitable.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    5. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

      I envy your simplistic view of the world. People like you try to present a false and dichotomous view. That we have to choose between nukes and annihilation, because "prisoner's dilemma doncha know."

      There are two main reasons that you're wrong. 1. Real life isn't as psychopathic as you make it out to be. During the cold war, the USA had several very good opportunities to take out the USSR with a nuclear strike but it never did. Or do you think only Americans are human?

      Regardless, even if you completely lack faith in humanity, you're still wrong, because 2. the combined power of the world's conventional military forces would be more than enough to counter the threat of a few dinky nukes created by some rogue state.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    6. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      I envy your simplistic view of the world.

      its not simplistic. its just that you don't see or understand the complexity, for instance everything else you wrote had nothing to do with what I said. You didnt understand what I said at all, obviously. So since you require simplicity, let me lay it straight:

      If everyone dis-arms, then players will eventually re-arm because its the right strategy. Its the right strategy because its inevitable that someone will and there are advantages to being the first ones to do it (if you don't believe this, ask Iran what it thinks)

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    7. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

      No, I understood your point, and my second point was a direct response to it. You have a simplistic view of the world because you heard about game theory once and think that your childish interpretation of the prisoner's dilemma can be used as a direct substitute to understand something as complicated as global politics and nuclear deterrence!

      I'm not even going to reply to you again, just advise you to re-read what I wrote.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    8. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      No, I understood your point, and my second point was a direct response to it.

      No it wasn't. Your second point just hopes that only a few, and I quote, "dinky nukes" will be built and that the the rest of the world will strike down this country before any more are built because the only countries that can build them post-disarmament are, and I quote, "rogue states."

      Pure fantasy.

      (A) No country that has built nukes has ever built "just a few dinky nukes" - so you are imagining a world that doesnt even fit objective reality.
      (B) Every country has friends, even "rogue states", and its always a good idea to be friendly with the nuke holders. This is again an objective reality. Its the reality right now.

      Your argument is based on the idea that reality is somehow so completely different to the objective reality we can see that it doesnt even pass first muster. Its just the pure wishful thinking of a naive person.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    9. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

      I think I figured out what your sticking point is. You completely lack knowledge of what nuclear weapons are and how they work. You seem to have this idea of nukes as some mythical all-destroying force. You seem to think that once a country develops nukes it instantly has the power to flatten Washington DC or New York, and can start dictating terms to everyone.

      > No country that has built nukes has ever built "just a few dinky nukes" - so you are imagining a world that doesnt even fit objective reality.

      Actually that's exactly what India, Pakistan, and North Korea did.

      The reality is that nuclear weapons development is expensive and hard to hide. No nation has ever successfully hid its nuclear proliferation activities. Every nuclear-armed country has gone through a phase when its nukes were pretty crap and ineffective and it was vulnerable to attack and takeover by other countries. Ultimately, the reason such intervention didn't happen had nothing to do with the fear of nuclear retaliation from those nations.

      I'll grant you that (B) is a good argument and the first non-psychopathic thing you've said so far. And it shows that you're simply not listening, because I'm mentioning a global non-proliferation effort that would by definition marginalize rogue states that attempted to develop nuclear weapons.

      But I get it. People like you don't want peace. You want war. You'll come up with pseudo-scientific bullshit to support your cause in any way you can. Nukes are necessary, you'll say, right up to the point where some fool presses the button and we all have to deal with the radioactive consequences.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    10. Re:Need to Make "Safer" Nuclear Weapons by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

      In addition to my reply above, I'm actually going to say that I agree with you that disarmament and non-proliferation is a fantasy that probably isn't going to ever happen (at least not until there's a full-blown nuclear war, which is inevitable). But that's only because of the existence and influence of insane RWAs such as yourself.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
  7. The most important question by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

    The eternal question: Does it run Linux?

  8. And... by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

    Those are only the unclassified ones.

  9. Just more proof by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    More proof that Obama is into bitcoin mining.

  10. Re:But... by davester666 · · Score: 1

    For some unknown reason, the plans show there will be a small table with a large red button mounted on it, with the label "Press Me If You Dare" on it, just outside the front door of the building.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!