NSA, DOE Say China's Supercomputing Advances Put US At Risk (computerworld.com)

dcblogs quotes a report from Computerworld: Advanced computing experts at the National Security Agency and the Department of Energy are warning that China is "extremely likely" to take leadership in supercomputing as early as 2020, unless the U.S. acts quickly to increase spending. China's supercomputing advances are not only putting national security at risk, but also U.S. leadership in high-tech manufacturing. If China succeeds, it may "undermine profitable parts of the U.S. economy," according to a report titled U.S. Leadership in High Performance Computing by HPC technical experts at the NSA, the DOE, the National Science Foundation and other agencies. The report stems from a workshop held in September that was attended by 60 people, many scientists, 40 of whom work in government, with the balance representing industry and academia. "Meeting participants, especially those from industry, noted that it can be easy for Americans to draw the wrong conclusions about what HPC investments by China mean -- without considering China's motivations," the report states. "These participants stressed that their personal interactions with Chinese researchers and at supercomputing centers showed a mindset where computing is first and foremost a strategic capability for improving the country; for pulling a billion people out of poverty; for supporting companies that are looking to build better products, or bridges, or rail networks; for transitioning away from a role as a low-cost manufacturer for the world; for enabling the economy to move from 'Made in China' to 'Made by China.'"

Comments

So fix it for $diety sake

[Snotnose]

Instead of billions on a stupid wall, invest billions in supercomputing tech. Hell, invest billions in semiconductor tech, cuz China is trying to take the lead in semiconductors big time.

Fucking Trump, trying to bring back manufacturing when he doesn't understand the concept of "robot".

Re:So fix it for $diety sake

[sit1963nz]

Hell, cut back on your military spending, the US already spends more than the next 10 nations combined. Even if you halved spending you would still spend more than any other nation. Those trillions could be used for health, education, R&D, infrastructure, welfare, etc etc etc

Re: So fix it for $diety sake

[Kiuas]

But it's the only thing we can think of to employ Americans.

The problem in my view (as a non-american) with the military spending is that the military then has to be used to justify the gigantic cost of it. It creates a situation in which you pretty much have to be involved in perpetual conflicts because otherwise having 10 aircraft carrier groups, hundreds of bases outside the US and other tools designed to project insane amounts of force anywhere on the globe cannot be justified. Orwell had a point about this:

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another.

Re:So fix it for $diety sake

[Kiuas]

Poland and Finland wont anymore, but why should we put their people above our own families?

As a Finn: fuck you. We are not, and have never been, in NATO. We already pay for our own defense, every cent of it. We have compulsory military service for all men due to the size difference between us (5,4 million) and Russia (140 million). If push comes to shove we can muster nearly a trained million men into arms.

The strategy of defense for us is not to compete with Russia in a direct conflict. But when you scatter 800 000 soldiers to the woods with guns and (modern) equipment hidden all around the vast countryside, it's going to make Afghanistan look like a a walk in the park. The Russians have around 30 000 troops that they can mobilize rapidly across the border. That's nowhere near enough to take us on. An invasion would require them to start moving large amounts of troops from elsewhere, something they have very limited capacity to do at the moment because of funds and the ongoing conflicts in both Ukraine and Syria.

Which is to say: while we cannot singlehandedly defeat Russia, we can make occupying this country so costly to them in terms of lives and resources that they will have to think hard whether or not the benefits outweigh the costs. That's been the corner stone of the Finnish Defense Forces ever since the 2nd world war and so far the Russians have not desired to test just how serious we are about maintaining our independence, probably because they have some bad memories from the way the Winter War went for them.

To Quote The Late Buck Turgidson:

[DoktorMidnight]

"Mr. President we must not allow a mineshaft gap!"

Or quit slurping our data..

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Alternatively, you could stop spying on everything everyone does, and use some of that money to cover your new toys.

Out here in the real world, we're about done writing blank checks for "national security" and "them terrists". No one would ever notice if you cut your mission in half.

Re:Or quit slurping our data..

[Anonymous Coward]

Out here in the real world, we're about done writing blank checks for "national security" and "them terrists".

Evidently not, given that the US President is pushing for a massive _increase_ in defense spending.

Re:It's all made in China

[AHuxley]

China is taking a lot of very slow consumer chips and making a fast networked computer system.
Only the USA has the university graduates to design a real super computer with super computer ready CPU designs.
China is doing what contractors sold the NSA in the 1980's. A lot of desktop CPU's on a really fast network can do some super computer like work on a lot of data.
Great for the contractors selling a support service to the NSA.
An easy hardware solution for China to get fast results if the question can be worked on with a more limited set of maths on a networked system.
If the US wants to win the supercomputer race, just redefine what a real super computer is again.
A fast network of consumer cpu's is not a real supercomputer anymore.
With a new ranking standard the USA is number one again.

if your strength relies on the weakness of others

[dAzED1]

if your strength relies upon the weakness of others, then it isn't really strength. I know, "without light there is no dark" "without up there is no down" "without weakness there is no strength" - no. China is just 1 country, and has 6x the number of people. There are plenty of other countries that are in poor shape, if we (in the US) really feel we need to be "superior" to someone else. Until then, this kind of crap is a waste of tax dollars, under the thinly veiled cover of nationalism

At risk?

[Zemran]

US incompetence is portrayed as being a victim. As if China is a threat because the US has not done anything for decades. China deserves respect for getting their fingers out of their arses while the US is too busy wasting its money invading innocent counties. If we are to talk about risk discuss the real problem if we are talking about Chinese advances have the balls to show some respect.

2020? How about 2016

[Anonymous Coward]

China builds worldâ(TM)s fastest supercomputer without U.S. chips
Chinaâ(TM)s New Supercomputer Puts the US Even Further Behind

The next one is going to be 10 times as fast:
Tianhe-3 will be 10 times faster than the current fastest supercomputer in the world, the Sunway TaihuLight

Trump understands

[Okian Warrior]

Fucking Trump, trying to bring back manufacturing when he doesn't understand the concept of "robot".

Perhaps, but I'm pretty sure he understands the concept of unemployment.

In your opinion, is supercomputing more important than bringing back jobs?

What's your stance on H1B then?

Re:Trump understands

[AmiMoJo]

Supercomputing WILL bring back jobs! Far more so than manual labour that will be quickly automated away.

Supercomputing is how you develop new materials, new drugs, new high end manufacturing. All the good jobs are in services now, not labour that a machine could do if it were only very slightly cheaper than a human.

That's what the Chinese recognize and why they will overtake the US if things don't change. You can't hang on to the jobs of the past, you have to adapt and change with the times and invest in your future. China is absolutely brutal about advancement and putting the good of the country before individuals who want to keep living their same lifestyle. The US doesn't need to go that far, but it can't be too luddite about it either.

"Build better bridges"

[tlambert]

"Build better bridges".

Not really. The better we've become at engineering, the more we cut the bridge designs from "massively overbuilt, in such a way as to endure they never fall apart" to replace them with "barely overbuilt, in such a way as the first storm slightly out of the overage tolerance we've allowed will cause everything to be destroyed".

Seems stupid.

Rather than trying to figure out how to cut our tolerances as close to the bone as possible, we should probably go back to massively overbuilding things -- and then use our knowledge of tolerances to *ensure* they are massively overbuilt.

If we did that, we wouldn't have things like the 2007 I-35W bridge collapse happening. The bridges might sink into the ground under their own weight, but they wouldn't be collapsing.

Re:It's all made in China

[serviscope_minor]

China is taking a lot of very slow consumer chips and making a fast networked computer system.

That's not right. It's not even wrong.

You don't seem to understand what modern supercomputers are, what China are doing or what the hard bit is.

The Tianhe-2 (current #2) uses Xeon and Xeon Phi chips like many of the other top 500. Xeon Phi is the Xeon equivalent of a GPU which is more or less a large bunch of rather slow, FP heavy cores connected on die with a good interconnect. They couple the whole show together with their own custom interconnect, which is one of the hard bits. Intel spent $125 million to buy a previous generation interconnect from Cray, because that was easier than rolling their own.

But anyway the Tianhe-2 is like many (the majority) on the top 500, COTS CPUs, COTS coprocessor cards and some sort of cool interconnect.

And then there's Sunway TaihuLight, the current #1. That's another ball of wax. That's a bit more like the K-computer (#7) which has a large number of custom CPU dies with relatively low clocking, high floating point density cores with a networking interconnect right there on the die for extra low latency. The Sunway CPUs are a bit like the Cell in archiecture. Either way, they've got a huge amount of floating point grunt and are not remotely consumer chips.

Only the USA has the university graduates to design a real super computer with super computer ready CPU designs.

Actual verifiable facts disagree with you. The #1 position is a custom design made in China. The former #1 (now #7) is a custom design made in Japan, and has the best peak to max ratio on the list.

The US currently dominates the list, but is not the only player. Your claim is nothing but mindless jingoism fuelled by an ignorance of how supercomputers work.

A fast network of consumer cpu's is not a real supercomputer anymore.

A very fast, low latency network of CPUs is the *only* thing a supercomputer is anymore.

With a new ranking standard the USA is number one again.

Right so if y'all simply define yourselves to be #1, then youre #1. What does that achive?