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China Arms Upgraded Tianhe-2A Hybrid Supercomputer (nextplatform.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-and-improved dept.

New submitter kipperstem77 shares an excerpt from a report via The Next Platform: The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) has, according to James Lin, vice director for the Center of High Performance Computing (HPC) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who divulged the plans last year, is building one of the three pre-exascale machines [that China is currently investing in], in this case a kicker to the Tianhe-1A CPU-GPU hybrid that was deployed in 2010 and that put China on the HPC map. This exascale system will be installed at the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin, not the one in Guangzhou, according to Lin. This machine is expected to use ARM processors, and we think it will very likely use Matrix2000 DSP accelerators, too, but this has not been confirmed. The second pre-exascale machine will be an upgrade to the TaihuLight system using a future Shenwei processor, but it will be installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Jinan. And the third pre-exascale machine being funded by China is being architected in conjunction with AMD, with licensed server processor technology, and which everyone now thinks is going to be based on Epyc processors and possibly with Radeon Instinct GPU coprocessors. The Next Platform has a slide embedded in its report "showing the comparison between Tianhe-2, which was the fastest supercomputer in the world for two years, and Tianhe-2A, which will be vying for the top spot when the next list comes out." Every part of this system shows improvements.

23 comments

  1. All for porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    why else name it NUDT?

  2. Their supercomputer is no match for our wall! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Their supercomputer is no match for our wall!

    1. Re: Their supercomputer is no match for our wall! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They already have a wall and its bigger than anything trump is planning.

      So they win on both accounts

  3. Title scared me by wisebabo · · Score: 1

    For a second I thought, OMG they're arming (as in giving weapons) to their supercomputers! I had no idea that Chinese A.I. was so advanced, maybe Elon Musk (and Putin?) are right! (Elon Musk is afraid of the Roboapocalypse and Putin said whoever controls A.I. will control the world).

    Anyway, does anyone have an idea how well these systems perform with the native (home grown in China) processors? Are they using the ARM chips as a backup plan or have they even given up on their own efforts? (doubtful). By the way, is China still restricted from access to U.S. Supercomputer technology (seems hardly worth it now) and perhaps that category should be extended to include A.I.?

    Finally, does the fact that everyone(?) seems to have settled on this sort of large exa-scale clusters of Von-Neumann processors mean that the debate over which architecture is completely over? A long long time ago, there were some efforts I remember to more closely couple memory and CPU, like in Thinking Machines systems. Are those efforts dead? Is it due to the difficulty in writing software for fundamentally different execution sequences/memory sharing?

    1. Re:Title scared me by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Are they using the ARM chips as a backup plan or have they even given up on their own efforts?

      These processors are fabricated in China

      By the way, is China still restricted from access to U.S. Supercomputer technology (seems hardly worth it now)

      There are restrictions on supercomputers and also on the latest steppers for fabrication. These restrictions are seldom based on any logical rationale. Remember back in the 1990s when T-shirts were classified as munitions and banned for export?

      The most likely outcome of these restrictions is to compel China to develop their own technology, improve it until it matches or improves on western tech, and then take over the market. So we will end up dependent on them.

      and perhaps that category should be extended to include A.I.?

      The hard part of AI is the software. Restrictions on sharing AI research will push more and more of it out of America.

    2. Re:Title scared me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >> ... and perhaps that category should be extended to include A.I.?

      >The hard part of AI is the software. Restrictions on sharing AI research will push more and more of it out of America.

      Andrew Ng, the pioneer of ML and DL, is an ethnic Chinese

      After helping Google in establishing the Google Brain, Prof. Ng went to China and taught them all he knows

      Now, Tencent of China is one of the leader in the world for ML / DL / AI

    3. Re:Title scared me by johnjones · · Score: 1

      they dont have plants yet...

      GlobalFoundries, Intel, Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC and UMC all are building new fabs or expanding their existing plants in China however they estimate 50% could fail to be built

      TSMC and in fact anyone with taiwan heritage should be worried very very worried how they are going to be competitive as a nation going forward...

      as soon as a design enters that region I am doubtful the PLA will not be kept out...

      the scale linked in the article is very small 19PB is basically 19 racks its not huge the real crux is the DSP / GPU / FPGA designs from be "utilised"

      good luck

    4. Re:Title scared me by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      Oh they have plants alright. Plus they are building more. The problem is they don't have leading edge processes. SMIC would be one example of a Chinese foundry.

  4. Kudos for the title hook by sysrammer · · Score: 2

    1st thought: What, missiles? Drones?
    2nd thought: Actual arms on the computer.
    3rd thought: Dammit, got me.

    --
    His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    1. Re:Kudos for the title hook by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      They gave an arm and a leg for a supercomputer.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Kudos for the title hook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1st thought: What, missiles? Drones?
      2nd thought: Actual arms on the computer.
      3rd thought: Dammit, got me.

      A bunch of Chinese people used their arms to upgrade the supercomputer?

      Yeah I couldn't make sense of it either.

      - AC

  5. From the Butchering the English Language Dept. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) has, according to James Lin, vice director for the Center of High Performance Computing (HPC) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who divulged the plans last year, is building one of the three pre-exascale machines [that China is currently investing in], in this case a kicker to the Tianhe-1A CPU-GPU hybrid that was deployed in 2010 and that put China on the HPC map."

    Wow. That "sentence."

    1. Re: From the Butchering the English Language Dept. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) has, according to James Lin, vice director for the Center of High Performance Computing (HPC) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who divulged the plans last year, is building one of the three pre-exascale machines [that China is currently investing in], in this case a kicker to the Tianhe-1A CPU-GPU hybrid that was deployed in 2010 and that put China on the HPC map."
      Wow. That "sentence."

      Huh? That sentence is perfectly fine. No garden paths. Clear, simple progressions of information.

      What is your objection? That your brain is to simple to process it?

    2. Re: From the Butchering the English Language Dept. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Allow me to break this down for you, where the problem is.

      "The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) has..."
      So far, so good.
      " according to James Lin, vice director for the Center of High Performance Computing (HPC) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who divulged the plans last year"
      This is messy, but furthermore, could be omitted entirely, as it's just commenting (in a messy way) who is reporting on the news, and what his title is. The point is, if you omit it entirely, the next part of the sentence is this:
      " is building one of the three pre-exascale machines..."

      So you have the sentence going like this:
      "The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) has is building one of the three pre-exascale machines..."

      Now do you see the problem??

  6. even china's big new supercomputer.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    won't be able to make any sense out of what supreme crackpot is doing. a for effort, but we're gonna need something a lot bigger and a lot smarter. or a lot more nuclear.

  7. Of course this now means... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They will finally be able to run Vista!

  8. The want all the bitcoins for themselves by Gabest · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What else could be the reason.

  9. Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tianhe means WOPR in chinese

    1. Re:Translation by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      Actually IIRC Tianhe is the name the Chinese give to the Milky Way galaxy.

  10. Serious actual question. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tianhe-2 apparently drew 17.6 megawatts.

    How much more does Tianhe-2A draw, and what's the largest portion of the cluster they can run simultaneously without causing blackouts in the surrounding area?

  11. Only 17.6 MW? by thesupraman · · Score: 1

    A SMALL aluminium smelter can consumer over 500MW..

    Really, 17.6MW is nothing on any industrial scale..
    Hell, the Chinese have 9MW electric locomotive tractors, which they use in tandem..

    Now, if it was 1.21GW, and involved a flux capacitor... then we would be talking!

  12. Arrrr.... by dohzer · · Score: 1

    So they 'ARM'ed them. The didn't arm them? Just correcting an editorial error. K Thx Bai.