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US Sets Plan To Build Two Exascale Supercomputers (computerworld.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the it-takes-two-to-tango dept.

dcblogs quotes a report from Computerworld: The U.S. believes it will be ready to seek vendor proposals to build two exascale supercomputers -- costing roughly $200 to $300 million each -- by 2019. The two systems will be built at the same time and be ready for use by 2023, although it's possible one of the systems could be ready a year earlier, according to U.S. Department of Energy officials. The U.S. will award the exascale contracts to vendors with two different architectures. But the scientists and vendors developing exascale systems do not yet know whether President-Elect Donald Trump's administration will change directions. The incoming administration is a wild card. Supercomputing wasn't a topic during the campaign, and Trump's dismissal of climate change as a hoax, in particular, has researchers nervous that science funding may suffer. At the annual supercomputing conference SC16 last week in Salt Lake City, a panel of government scientists outlined the exascale strategy developed by President Barack Obama's administration. When the session was opened to questions, the first two were about Trump. One attendee quipped that "pointed-head geeks are not going to be well appreciated."

59 comments

  1. Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of These! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If that's still a thing...

    1. Re: Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of These! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Where does lame duck come from?

      Mallard Fillmore

    2. Re:Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of These! by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      You're obviously too lazy to look up "lame duck" at wikipedia, where the origin is explained.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  2. Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't it just another one of those media catch phrases?

    1. Re:Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean like how all software today is considered A.I.? Yeah, it goes both ways.

    2. Re:Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by NotInHere · · Score: 1

      Trump supports everything that is BIG LEAUGE and puts AMERICA FIRST.

    3. Re:Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Trump supports everything that is BIG LEAUGE and puts AMERICA FIRST.

      He has awfully small hands though...

    4. Re:Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The scientists need to learn how to play the political game.

      How to get your funding cut: "This computer is for climate modeling."

      How to get your funding increased: "This computer is for nuclear warhead design validation."

      They can go back to "climate" in 2018 if the Democrats win the mid-terms.

    5. Re:Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re "This computer is for nuclear warhead design validation."
      A new deep bunker busting design. A surgical nuclear first strike can be designed if the super computer power is upgraded.
      Decades of jobs for contractors to design, create, hide the testing and produce new systems :)

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    6. Re:Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: 1

      He has awfully small hands though...

      Yeah, but his kid Barron can build it. That kid is so good with the cyber.

    7. Re:Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fastest supercomputers should be very easy to sell for any administration who feels the blowing wind of the national pride in their heads and beneath their footsteps. Big, beautiful, and shiny objects in big buildings is comprehensibly concrete for anyone with eyes. It's a fundamentally bipartisan issue, especially since the international competition is there.

    8. Re:Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      Just calmly inform the lard ass and chief that with these computers he will be able to make better decisions about how to get more money. He will then start a twitter war on these scientists/engineers that they're not putting everything they've got into the project, that they're losers for not having it built already.

    9. Re: Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just tell him the supercomputer runs his Twitter feed.

    10. Re: Does Trump even "believe in" Super Computing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet Melania can cyber your ass off too. I fear that cyberclam.

  3. nerds not wanted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "pointed-head geeks are not going to be well appreciated."

    Thanks for clarifying the official policy regarding antisocial nerds. Trouble is, those antisocial nerds built the personal computing revolution from which you are now benefiting. Antisocial nerds built the free software revolution from which you are now benefiting. Antisocial nerds built the cloud computing revolution from which you are now benefiting. Antisocial nerds built the social media revolution from which you are now benefiting.

    You owe your modern information age to nerds. Now you want to kick antisocial nerds to the curb and into the gutter.

    When you say America will be great again, do you mean America will be great for everyone except nerds?

    1. Re:nerds not wanted by CajunArson · · Score: 0

      Take that strawman you invented in your head!

      If only Aaron Sorkin wasn't still detoxing from all that Xanax he took after the election. You could be writing 10 minute long self-indulgent monologues for his next failed cable show.

      --
      AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    2. Re:nerds not wanted by russotto · · Score: 1

      I think given the context it's fair to assume the "pointed-headed geek" commenter was a "pointy-headed geek". That is, it was a reference to the way Trump would presumably consider people like them.

      Not a problem, however. When Trump asks about "Exascale", just tell him it means these things are going to be YUUUUGE, and he'll sign off.

    3. Re:nerds not wanted by AHuxley · · Score: 0

      When you say America will be great again, do you mean America will be great for everyone..
      Yes AC.
      Less wars globally. More jobs in the USA for people from the USA. Less tax so you get to keep your wage and spend it on things you want or need.
      Less big gov and hidden no bid contractors, less debt to service. Educational standards so the only the very best and brightest in the USA can get into the best US universities again.
      Pass a real exam and secure a place at a really great campus. Pay your tuition or get a scholarship but the skills will be real.
      Study with only the very best and get a great education. Have the freedom to find a good job thanks to a great education or start your own brand or company. Hire the very best people you want to grow your brand with. No big gov telling you how to run your company, who to hire, how many people to have on staff as your brand grows. If you get selected as a contractor, no having to find new staff. Sell a product or service to the gov per contract and face real competition just like in the private sector.
      Create local jobs thanks to your skills, sell to the world on quality and price.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    4. Re:nerds not wanted by Jeremi · · Score: 2

      Pass a real exam and secure a place at a really great campus. Pay your tuition or get a scholarship but the skills will be real. Study with only the very best and get a great education.

      Hey, you copied that right out of the Trump University brochure!

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    5. Re:nerds not wanted by jandersen · · Score: 1

      ...antisocial nerds.

      I understand what you mean (I think), but I think we need to clarify this point: nerds are, possibly, asocial, but not generally anti-social. "Asocial" meaning "not social/sociable", which describes most of us who are more interested in technology and science than in socialising, and "anti-social" meaning "against (or even hostile to) social order and -connections", which I doubt many of us really are - it is something we normally associate with psychopaths.

      When you say America will be great again, do you mean America will be great for everyone except nerds?

      Hey, take a rough guess. When someone like Trump talks about "making America great again", it doesn't mean anything, really; they have this vague feeling that they are somehow not good enough, that everybody else looks down at them, and they want somehow to feel that they are great - Trump clearly imagines that he is a brilliant person who is unfairly being put upon, and he has decided that it is the fault of "them", where "them" happen to be Mexicans, the Chinese and other groups that have dared to criticise him. We have seen this happen over and over through history: intellectuals invariably end up being "the enemy of the state" because they tend to point out the obvious weak points in the plans of small-minded people, who have ended up in positions of power. And the don't come much smaller than Trump - as Ernest Rutherford would have said: he is an Euclidean point (that is, he has a position, but no magnitude).

    6. Re:nerds not wanted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Russian plant!

    7. Re:nerds not wanted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only a pointy-headed geek would call it "pointed-head geek". What that makes you, misquoting the original misquote, I don't dare to speculate.

  4. You need to speak trump to trump. by Z80a · · Score: 2

    Just tell him that they can use em to save his irish golf course and bob's your uncle.

  5. nerds get the hell out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whiny bitch you seceded yet??

    1. Re:nerds get the hell out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whiny bitch you seceded yet??

      Even though the US States created the federal government and therefore, have every right to remove themselves from it ... Good old Honest Abe Lincoln fought an illegal war just to set a really bad precedent. That he felt a need to suspend habeus corpus and even went so far as arresting Congressmen who spoke against him (so the Capitol was a key place where the First Amendment of the most sacred document, the Highest Law of the Land didn't apply) and generally acted like a complete tyrant) should have been key warning signs. I've never heard of a lawful, Constitutional course of action which had to resort to such extreme measures. I don't think I ever will.

      So states that no longer wish to be part of the Union have a solid precedented reason to think twice about carrying out the will of their citizens. Yeah, that'll help. Because a good Union that's healthy for its members needs to use fear to keep States within its bounds? Does that somehow make sense? "Because we really want to and feel justified in our own eyes" is not a good reason. "This is for a greater good" has been the argument of tyrants and dictators throughout history, including one famous fellow from Germany (and - fuck off - Godwin's Law does not apply when it's a legitimate case in point - you're not really so clever after all, now attack the substance of the argument or piss off, seriously, you knee-jerk know-it-all bastards are ruining the Internet).

      Truth be told, if every American citizen who has ever been abused and bullied for "being a nerd" were to leave in some way, it wouldn't take very long for the rest to crumble and beg for their return. It's just that this is a character inclination, which has not (yet) been recognized as being every bit as fundamental as things like race, sex, color, religion, ethnicity, etc. So it's socially and fashionably deemed "okay" to hate nerds. When society progresses, this behavior will be considered no different from racism or sexism today, and will include the same legal protections. It's amazing though, the way society learns specific instances (i.e. "don't hate skin color different from your own") but not the obvious underlying principles (i.e. "don't hate anyone, except maybe specific individuals who deliberately chose to give you a reason to do so").

      A lot of people claim to see UFOs. I don't know what that means but bear with me. If one gets imaginative for a moment, and entertains the idea (be it true or false) that these objects are actually alien spacecraft, then it's no mystery why the aliens wouldn't make open public contact. They would be smarter than that. All they have to do is look at the way we treat each other and question whether something totally alien and unknown can expect any better. "They're just not ready" would be an enlightened view, the kind you'd expect from anyone able to cross interstellar space. It's just something to think about.

    2. Re: nerds get the hell out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fear is always necessary for the ones who are selfish and spiteful. It is telling that the one group that did try secession only did so after they lost a lawful election and for the express purpose of perpetuating a moral abomination rather than accepting a peaceful path that would have worked out better for everyone.

      The Death Star was made necessary to protect the innocent.

    3. Re:nerds get the hell out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dammit, I keep on having to correct fuckin' Merkins on their own History:
      "Even though the US States created the federal government and therefore, have every right to remove themselves from it ... Good old Honest Abe Lincoln fought an illegal war just to set a really bad precedent."
      There were _no_ States before there was a Federal Government, just a loose bunch of Colonies with wildly varying Laws and Institutions. The Continental Congresses went through 14 Presidents and over a decade trying to form a Confederation that always broke down in squabbles. That is why a Constitution was felt necessary to _first_ create a form of a Federal Government, including some restrictions on same, including the 10th Amendment, and provisions for further amendments as deemed necessary. Only then could the States form their own structures within it. And there were those that felt then, and probably now, that Federal Government was a very bad idea. It took a Civil War to settle this, followed by a Supreme Court decision- once a State after Union, always a State:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White
      (Note that an interesting case may be made concerning West Virginia, but they seceded from Virginia during the War in order to _stay_ in the Union. Whether those two States should have been reunited after the War is still subject to speculation.)
      Now you may want to argue against the History of the Constitution and the Supreme Court all you want, but you are still too damn ignorant to even make a start.

    4. Re: nerds get the hell out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually you're both wrong. Any State can leave, provided that they get support from all the other States and get it approved.

    5. Re:nerds get the hell out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see that you are still fighting the war of northern aggression. Yes sedition and treason are punishable regardless of who commits it or when. I guess your hero Scalia was wrong when he said that the constitution did not allow for states once admitted to the union could not secede. The real tyrants in this case are the clowns like Cruz, Ryan, McConnell, Bannon and Trump.

  6. But will they run Linux? by donaldm · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a fair guess that they will run Linux as the kernel on their supercomputers since Linux is on around 99.6% on all supercomputers in the world but it may be possible that other parties are lobbying behind the scenes.

    --
    There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
    1. Re:But will they run Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course it will run Linux. There's no other OS for serious use like this. I don't think the BSDs scale this high, and everything else is a video game console.

    2. Re: But will they run Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The scaling has little to do with the underlying OS on each node and more to do with the fact it's free to license (which scales well economically) and most useful core scientific applications are developed as FOSS for Linux, especially those designed to scale for parallel (distributed memory) computing.

  7. Trump CRAVES exascale. It's HUGE! by raymorris · · Score: 1

    If you were going to describe Trump's personality in 3 words, one of those words would have to be "huge". Trump has a passion for the oversized, overdone, magnificent - anything bigger and more lavish than the other guy. It should be easy to sell Trump in "the biggest, fastest computers ever built", if the people selling him on it have any understanding of who they are talking to.

    His dad bought two-story apartment buildings, Trump builds skyscrapers, with gold-plated fixtures. Some rich guys have a Leer jet, Trump has a private airliner. Wanna sell Trump on a super computer? Just tell him it's going to be huge, magnificent, incredible. He can't help himself when something is incredible.

    1. Re: Trump CRAVES exascale. It's HUGE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's "youge"

    2. Re:Trump CRAVES exascale. It's HUGE! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Some rich guys have a Leer jet, Trump has a private airliner.

      I'm pretty sure that in Trump's case it's a leer jet.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:Trump CRAVES exascale. It's HUGE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he gave his daughter a leer and then he got a bigger one.

  8. Special software by Snotnose · · Score: 1

    They gonna have special software to prove global warming is a hoax? Or are the religious nutjobs too stupid to realize these will prove thy're religious nutjobs?

  9. Not to worry, I have the solution! by hey! · · Score: 2

    Don't think of Trump's Mexico wall as 35 feet high and 1000 miles long. It's 240 RUs tall by 5.5 milllion rack widths long.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    1. Re:Not to worry, I have the solution! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeh and Mexico can pay for it......

  10. But will it run Crisis at max settings? by Charcharodon · · Score: 1
    I know we are long past that, so what game now is the recorded holder for "most ridiculous hardware requirements to run on max settings" these days?

    Triple 4K monitors layout with Star Citizen/Battlefield 1? I've been so busy adult'ing this past decade I've not been keeping up.

    I just realized my core machine is nearly 7-8 years old and the last time I threw a new video card at it was one that was already 3-4 generations out of date and that was 4 years ago. :'( Time to start spec'ing out a new box.

    1. Re:But will it run Crisis at max settings? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Interesting question.But I personally did not play any of the new releases to make a suggestion (except the new Doom, but this one was too well done to be able to get into this "dispute").

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    2. Re:But will it run Crisis at max settings? by Pascoea · · Score: 1

      I've been so busy adult'ing this past decade I've not been keeping up.

      Yeah. That's a hell of a realization isn't it? I had the same one a couple years ago when my son asked me to help him build a computer.
      Son: "Dad, whats a good video card?"
      Me: "..."
      Son: "..."
      Me: "Hell idk, I haven't bought one in 5 years"
      Son: "... Thanks. I'll just Google it."
      Me: "You'll make a good IT guy."

    3. Re:But will it run Crisis at max settings? by Charcharodon · · Score: 1

      Yeah that was basically the same thing that happened to me. My nephew wants a gaming rig and my sister was asking me about it. Didn't know what to tell her.

  11. Goodbye encryption? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can this supercomputer also double as an encryption breaker?

    1. Re: Goodbye encryption? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      it could do it faster. how about bitcoin mining also ;)

    2. Re:Goodbye encryption? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can this supercomputer also double as an encryption breaker?

      No, but we already have 10 of these for doing that sort of thing.

    3. Re:Goodbye encryption? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do you know how many waterboarding tables they have?

  12. Re: Crysis is older than dirt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    TIL: Today's $110 Geforce 1050 is faster than the best card on the market when Crysis came out in 2007 (Geforce 8800 Ultra).
    The only advantage of the older card: it had more texture mapping units (because it was a high-end card).

  13. But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's the point of spending millons of dollars to calculate how bad the climate changes will get - when no one cares?

    In one hundred years we will not be able to breath because of the CO2 in the atmosphere. I can calculate that on a napkin.

  14. Their names will be... by sabt-pestnu · · Score: 2

    Guardian and Colossus...

    1. Re:Their names will be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, no Googling this. Who gets this one right away? (Yes, I get it).

    2. Re:Their names will be... by Agripa · · Score: 1

      Of course I "get it" Dr. Forbin.

  15. What to build? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, if you got 500M to make a super computer, what would you consider?

    Build just enough to reclaim the super-er-est computer title. (Make America great)
    Whatever the company that needed the money was making.
    Ask for 2, get 1.
    Make it for nice, regular Physics arrays, (weather or making things go boom) or something more irregular (Codes or AI).
    Architecture? Intel, arm, gpu, fpga, or hybrid.

    The business as usual answer is probably some combination of the above, unless I'm missed a degree of freedom?

    To do something useful they really need to sim economics or climate.
    Unfortunately, the problem is not the computer in both instances.
    They are lacking in code and data.

  16. I've got news for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "pointed-head geeks are not going to be well appreciated."
    They never have been. Because they're the pointy-headed ones. Regular geeks understand this.

  17. Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If supercomputers are so useful, why can't they be privately funded?
    It's not like we need the government to take our money and pay for them...

  18. I know nobody will read this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I know nobody will read this but I'm going to vent anyways.

    We had an entire week devoted to the cutting edge of computing power, http://sc16.supercomputing.org/

    Not only has there only been one article (at least that I've seen) about it, this one only has small amount of comments.

    Now I realize the actual conference doesn't directly apply to most people because the scale and capabilities are things they can't even fathom. And I also know that many things are just incremental improvements and evolution.

    But come on, things like 200Gb/s EDR Infiniband and SGI UV or at least stats like 8.17 gigaflops/watt or 93 petaflops should at least peak a true nerds interest if not make them wet themselves.

  19. Murica! by stolidobserver · · Score: 1

    How many backdoors does a US supercomputer built on Chinese hardware come with standard?