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China Overtakes US In Latest Top 500 Supercomputer List (enterprisecloudnews.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Enterprise Cloud News: The release of the semiannual Top 500 Supercomputer List is a chance to gauge the who's who of countries that are pushing the boundaries of high-performance computing. The most recent list, released Monday, shows that China is now in a class by itself. China now claims 202 systems within the Top 500, while the United States -- once the dominant player -- tumbles to second place with 143 systems represented on the list. Only a few months ago, the U.S. had 169 systems within the Top 500 compared to China's 160. The growth of China and the decline of the United States within the Top 500 has prompted the U.S. Department of Energy to doll out $258 million in grants to several tech companies to develop exascale systems, the next great leap in HPC. These systems can handle a billion billion calculations a second, or 1 exaflop. However, even as these physical machines grow more and more powerful, a good portion of supercomputing power is moving to the cloud, where it can be accessed by more researchers and scientists, making the technology more democratic.

110 comments

  1. It's really only the U.S. and China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the who's who of countries that are pushing the boundaries of high-performance computing

    Except for China, all the "other countries" are using components made by companies such as Intel, AMD, Nvidia and Cray. All of them are American companies.

    1. Re:It's really only the U.S. and China by jonsmirl · · Score: 1

      How big are the clouds at Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc? I suspect if you could afford it, AWS would be #1.

    2. Re:It's really only the U.S. and China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How big are the clouds at Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc? I suspect if you could afford it, AWS would be #1.

      And you would be dead wrong. All those system use an interconnect that is slow as fuck.

    3. Re: It's really only the U.S. and China by Yohahn · · Score: 1

      There are plenty of problems that can happily use conviently parallel algorithms. The interconnect latency usually only matters if you are simulating a large memory.

    4. Re:It's really only the U.S. and China by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure the Japanese have their own hardware, and they've also recently acquired ARM which is suddenly relevant for HPC.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. The cloud is on its way out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Right now the big push is towards the chicken wing. Chicken Wing computing is similar to the cloud.... but it has wings, making your data more readily available and more secure with highly ruffled feathers on the network perimeter.
    Chicken wing storage and supercomputing is the future.

    1. Re:The cloud is on its way out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      plus its chicken and you can buy it at KFC! Win win!

      chicken tastes better than clouds anyway... ask any CPU..

    2. Re: The cloud is on its way out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Suddenly I be so hugray for some fried chicken wif biscuits! Dat would be so gewd wif some grape soda rite nows. Iz gotta git back to learning winduhs 10 cloud edition heer at devry so I can finish my edumikation yo.

  3. You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    China has give or take 4.4 times pop. as USA. They have more middle class people than you have people total. That middle class is growing rapidly because there are a huge number of poor who are being raised up to middle class over time as the country prospers and more and more of the world economy moves to China, and the GDP/pop is going up very fast.

    Eventually you will be unable to keep up in any domain: computing, military, mfg, world clout, anything. Rather than drive yourselves into the dirt trying to keep up when you have no hope, better to accept your place as second tier with grace. Do not set the world against you, because you will need allies and partners who will trade with you. Do not treat other countries with the concept you have been. Do not spend all your money on frivolity, military and chest thumping, instead of education and medical care for your people.

    USA, you will not keep up with China any more than Thailand (pop 69m) could be an economic and military power comparable to USA.

    Please try not to take out the whole world in a fit of blind rage when you become second trumpet.

    1. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Population size is a bad indicator of the ability to "keep up".

    2. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by Tablizer · · Score: 0

      China has give or take 4.4 times pop. as USA...[their] middle class is growing rapidly...Eventually you will be unable to keep up in any domain...Rather than drive yourselves into the dirt trying to keep up when you have no hope, better to accept your place as second tier with grace.

      I don't trust them to be a friendly big nation: totalitarians rarely settle. Perhaps we'll need more immigrants to avoid being swamped by sheer numbers. I know this bothers some, but the alternative may be the end of USA.

    3. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by boudie2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      USA have secret weapon. Donald J. Trump. Your MIPS supercomputer will be no help.

    4. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China's corrupt leadership is driving it to third place, at best. You warn the USA against being aggressive to other countries in the future, but look at what China is doing now in the South China Sea, Tibet, Mongolia, etc. As long as China is Communist, it will never be truly great, and it will never beat the USA (unless we really screw things up). Chinese people have great potential- I know because I see many of the best of them succeeding in the USA. But China itself, as it is now, can never be as great as the USA.

    5. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      drunk off the Fox Sauce, boy

    6. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Donald has already declared Chinas computer to be fake news... They do not have any computers at all... Case closed... USA wins again!

      Alternatively, he has declared that it is an alternative fact that China has no computers... and American IT can beat your China IT anyway... na na na... .... American IT will beat China IT anywhere and anytime.. name the time and place... name it... come on China, are you chicken?

    7. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Do you also address real arguments, or mainly just stick to this pathetic strawman shit? It's a bit sad, to be honest.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    8. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Trump knows all about computers. You betcha. Chinese computers are a hoax.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    9. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Two bald men fighting over a fucking comb.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    10. Re:You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Totalitarian states (like China) want to hold all the reigns of power. By controlling the distribution of information, for example, they sow distrust into the common people that is insidious.

      The average Chinese citizen assumes that not only is their leadership lying to them, but that all governmental regimes are lying to its citizens. It's highly evident in Chinese students who come the US for the first time. They are initially incredulous in learning that not only do people speak badly about their leaders, both as private citizens and in public media, but that it is actually encouraged.

      This is unheard of in Chinese society. In China, if you are the board that stands out, you will be hammered back into place.

      But that incredulity quickly resolves to the lucidity that they have been lied to their whole lives, and that if they return to China, they will continue to be lied to, and if they want to live with the freedoms they have enjoyed while in school, they have to find some way to not go back to China.

      But China is the siren call that draws them back to family, friends and the familiar. It's amazing how much freedom one is willing to trade for security. It's a security that people live in much like babies who are waddled. They can only live in as much space as the regime is willing to give them. Sadly, there is a large number of people who actually desire to live in a society where they are happy doing what the leaders tell them to.

      One day, though, enough people will have reached that liberating enlightenment and will desire to throw off that security blanket. We can only hope that the regime in power recognizes it before it's too late and prepares a peaceful democratic transition. To think of anything else would end disastrously not just for China, but for the entire world.

  4. Not just super computing... by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They are also planning on becoming #1 in quantum computing, radio astronomy, and plans in the work to build the next huge super collider. Meanwhile, in the USA, we are planning on giving rich trust-fund babies even more money they didn't earn, cutting back on our education, and appointing people who hate science to run science-based federal departments.

    1. Re:Not just super computing... by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They are also planning on becoming #1 [in many fields] Meanwhile, in the USA, we are planning on giving rich trust-fund babies even more money they didn't earn

      The rich spend boat-loads of money convincing the population that trickle-down either works, or would work if we reach a sufficient level of tax breaks and deregulation. So far this bribery, I mean investment, appears to be paying off because at least half the country accepts it.

      I do fear a slippery slope: the richer the rich get the more they spend on convincing the population that their own well-being depends on fat cats staying fat, given them even more power to get more power. The ever growing inequality since around 1980 is evidence of a slippery slope, or at least a trend somehow "stuck" going up.

      The idea of "corporate personhood" is not in the Constitution, but has slowly worked its way into common law by judges placed there by the rich. Some aspects of corporate personhood do have legal value in terms of deciding how to apply existing laws to corporations, but it's been way overdone.

    2. Re:Not just super computing... by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

      I'm planning on marrying a supermodel. Think it will work?

    3. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's because, tyrants or not, the ruling class in China are composed of scientists and engineers. They are able to plan for the future with rational thought processes.

    4. Re:Not just super computing... by sit1963nz · · Score: 1

      Don't forget appointing judges who have never even tried a case as a lawyer

    5. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It would be funny to "jail" a corporation, give it community service etc.

    6. Re:Not just super computing... by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      Or even a death penalty for companies.

      Knowingly break the rules killing hundreds?

      You're now government property to be auctioned off to new owners.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    7. Re:Not just super computing... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I don't get it. There should be applause. Why the sudden jingoism woo woo USA #1 rhetoric we all know is bullshit? China has never bombed another country for peace. Can anyone imagine a worse world leader than America? It's about time the rogue superpower got shoved off the world stage and a peaceful country kicked their racist, redneck asses. Remember: Capitalism is incompatible with socialism but is 100% compatible with fascism. China is mostly quiet, doing stuff in their own country for the most part (that YOU might consider as anti whatever, but locals not so much). The US on the other hand is a loud mouth cowboy who pretends he's all just and moral while bombing the crap out of everything, rigging elections, installing puppet presidents, doing assassinations, drug trade, and then complaining when somebody does similar. Americans are the least educated and knowledgeable of foreign affairs, languages, and disparate cultures, societies, and social norms among all Westernized countries and the least exposed universally.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    8. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      da, ivan good show now go get fish pension

    9. Re: Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The overwhelming bulk of the budget goes to transfer payments. If you want to see where our science money went, look there first.

    10. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Awww you can't take a remark so the other party must be foreign propaganda. You're pathetic!!

    11. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are also planning on becoming #1 in quantum computing, radio astronomy, and plans in the work to build the next huge super collider. Meanwhile, in the USA, we are planning on giving rich trust-fund babies even more money they didn't earn, cutting back on our education, and appointing people who hate science to run science-based federal departments.

      yes... Yes... YES.... Make America great again! *trumpets*

    12. Re:Not just super computing... by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Nothing like that is needed. Simply fine an appreciable percentage of revenue. 10% for first offence would be a good level. Go up in increments of 10% after that.

      Won't happen, because 'lobbying' as a fig leaf for endemic corruption is completely acceptable.

      Of course, this would all come unstuck if the people started voting for people who might change all this, but that won't happen either.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    13. Re:Not just super computing... by Maritz · · Score: 1

      I'm planning on marrying a supermodel. Think it will work?

      If you're sufficiently rich, of course.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    14. Re:Not just super computing... by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Yeah. China's leadership boils down to tyranny/totalitarianism but you cannot deny they seem to actually know what they're doing. The US, on the other hand, elects a fucking babbling manchild. The UK votes to leave the EU. Both horrific self-inflicted injuries that the Chinese are laughing their asses off at.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    15. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember: Capitalism is incompatible with socialism but is 100% compatible with fascism.

      Remember what "Zi" as in NaZi stands for...

    16. Re:Not just super computing... by dave420 · · Score: 1

      It doesn't stand for anything.

    17. Re:Not just super computing... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      It's an abbreviation of Nationalsozialist. It was to differentiate the National Socialists from the Social Democratic party, often called âoeSoziâ or âoeSozisâ (plural), because âoeSocialâ¦â is written âoeSozialâ¦â in Germany. The 24th edition of Etymologisches Worterbuch der deutschen Sprache says the word Nazi was favored in southern Germany (supposedly from c. 1924) among opponents of National Socialism because the nickname Nazi, Naczi (from the masc. proper name Ignatz, German form of Ignatius) was used colloquially to mean "a foolish person, clumsy or awkward person."

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    18. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From someone outside looking in :

      US is well on the way to having a few "elite" sucking the country dry and most probably before it implodes / pitchforks get picked up / massive unrest happens, they will just move out.

      Think about it, how many of your elite is not a dual citizen or have PR elsewhere? They have the money to move themselves and their families overnight to anywhere in the world. As it is most of the money and property (shares, actual property units, other things) are already stashed in various off shore companies / accounts. See Panama / Paradise papers for reference.

      You guys HAD a good thing going. I know people (including myself) who considered US as a dream location to migrate to. We are just regular joes who worked our way up, not "elite" in the sense of the billionaires, but we have our own resources. Most of us will probably move to somewhere in europe (not UK after brexit).

      Sept 11 really did destroy the soul of your country. Osama won, you guys already lost, you just dont know it yet.

    19. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you destroy the real Priesthood, something fills the vacuum.
      Capitalism works best when the winners feel gratitude to the powers above and are charitable.

    20. Re:Not just super computing... by penandpaper · · Score: 2

      um. TBH, I think both examples you mention for the US and UK are what make those two places better than China. Is it better to have a benevolent dictator or democracy? You seem to choose the benevolent dictator by your post. Democracy has always meant that a babbling man-child can be elected. Freedom means that you can impose self-inflicted injuries. The benevolent dictator is only better so long as they stay benevolent.

      China does have an interesting culture that has a very long sighted view. One example I can think of was a canal between two major cities taking hundreds of years that lasted through different dynasties and governments. Their civilization is thousands of years old and yet when the reigns of power change the important long term goals are still kept even if it takes a while.

    21. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what's to remark about a troll posting a troll post?

    22. Re:Not just super computing... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      I'd say Roy Moore may be a tipping point. If he remains in the running, and it seems he's intent on it, watch the results.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    23. Re:Not just super computing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the Nazi party was still founded by ex-soldiers as an extreme right-wing party, so look that one up if you dare!

    24. Re:Not just super computing... by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      they will just move out...how many of your elite is not a dual citizen or have PR elsewhere?

      For one, most other countries will tax them fairly heavily. Second, it's not easy to move certain kinds of assets out.

    25. Re:Not just super computing... by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      Even Chinese scientists are scared of China's lockdowns, and the quote is "The senior CAS official I spoke to clearly stated that the level of international collaboration currently enjoyed at LHC experiments will not be achievable at the Chinese supercollider". This will be an issue for all these major projects being done out of China. So my issue isn't about the US and a super collider (which we gave up on, even though we built the tunnels in Texas) but that the Communist party will own any and all tech that is produced there.

    26. Re:Not just super computing... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      How's that a bad thing? Instead of private companies hogging the benefits for themselves, all of society will benefit instead? I don't get it.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  5. Re: You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Keep silent coward.

  6. Using the cloud makes more sense... by saccade.com · · Score: 1

    Unless the researchers have a steady need for the computations, moving work to the cloud makes more sense. Why build a multi-million dollar facility when you can just rent the computers for a day or two for your computation? My guess is the list looks different if the data centers built by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. are factored in.

    1. Re:Using the cloud makes more sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amazon doesn't have that many extra servers available to replace all the super computers in the US. Then there's cost. It's not cheap to build or power a super computer but amazon pricing for compute optimized and gpu optimized boxes is insane.

    2. Re:Using the cloud makes more sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least in the top500 list, you are already talking pretty much all shared compute resources, they are well utilized and usually efficiently managed, and users tend to be highly regional (which is a big deal for data ingest and export, which sucks with the likes of AWS/Azure/Google). In this scenario, It's actually much cheaper to own than to rent. In fact, a number of HPC installations are organizations that migrated out of 'cloud' to reduce cost. Those vendors help with uneven utilization, getting to wide geographic scale to users across the internet, and saving large shops that should by all rights be in good shape for the other two, but have terrible self inflicted disasters trying to own and operate their own stuff (which generally manifest as a massive expensive problem in their cloud footprint as well, eventually).

      Of course what you mention the nature of research grants generally playing nicer with renting compared to traditional infrastructure acquisition, but the cost benefits have driven business and process changes at many institutions to make it easier to incrementally fund and deploy compute infrastructure. At the end of the day, the aggregate dollar amount being lower is motivation to overcome the logistics of how their business processes work.

      You do have a point about those datacenters of course. None of the three you mention allows data out that would betray their scale and Top500 participation is one of those things they absolutely stay out of. However, if you know where to look, you can most if not all of the big China counterparts on the Top500 list.

    3. Re:Using the cloud makes more sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As to 'where to look', to decode the 'secrecy' of the internet vendors:
      'Internet Servce A': Alibaba
      'Internet Service B': Baidu
      'Internet Service T': Tencent

      And similar stuff. With that in hand, at least 112 out of China's 202 are from just those three companies. They also consciously divided up big clusters into smaller ones to make the numbers look good (you see dozens of middle sized clusters all the same from the same company, because they strategically decided multiple top500 would work better, since the top 2 take care of the perfomance share problem).

      China is the only nation currently so blatantly gaming the Top500 list (sure there's always some gaming, but a party voluntarily screwing their rank of for the sake of the nation and/or vendor's share is unheard of elsewhere in the list).

    4. Re:Using the cloud makes more sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My guess is the list looks different if the data centers built by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. are factored in.

      Your guess is wrong. The slow as shit interconnect maes these things useless for real scientific work.

    5. Re:Using the cloud makes more sense... by Junta · · Score: 1

      The Top500 list measures xhpl performance only. While it is hurt by poor interconnect, it can still turn out solid numbers on a typical 10gb network.

      Truth is, the crappiness of a single dimension to measure the Top500 has been a well-known thing for at least 15 years. Interconnect can matter for a great deal of technical computing, but then again, sometimes plain ethernet is fine. Sometimes you don't need large memory amounts per node or decent single-threaded performance, but then again sometimes you do. Technical computing is a very diverse landscape and some of these hyper-specialized publicity stunts of Top500 systems suck at doing much of anything apart form running xhpl.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    6. Re:Using the cloud makes more sense... by CSMoran · · Score: 1

      Unless the researchers have a steady need for the computations, moving work to the cloud makes more sense. Why build a multi-million dollar facility when you can just rent the computers for a day or two for your computation?

      Of course we do. Top500 centres are almost exclusively used for scientific computations. In my field 128-256 GiB of RAM per node and an InfiniBand interconnect @40gbps+ are needed for reasonable performance, with typical jobs using hundreds of CPU cores and larger ones perhaps 8192 CPU cores. Most of sparse matrix algebra requires a lot of comms, things grind to a halt when the interconnect is slow. You can't do this kind of stuff in the cloud, not today.

      --
      Every end has half a stick.
    7. Re:Using the cloud makes more sense... by AnilJ · · Score: 1

      Absolutely correct. Graph 500 benchmarks are also important.

    8. Re:Using the cloud makes more sense... by AnilJ · · Score: 1

      problems have to be reformulated and new algorithms with tight asymptotic bounds need to be employed while pushing down the constants hidden in big O/Theta notation with highly tuned implementation. All old codes which are currently employed in scientific computing at national labs and/or universities were written with a different computational model in mind.

  7. Country of the century by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 1

    The 20th century was dominated by the USA. The 19th century was dominated by the United Kingdom. It looks rather likely (as demonstrated by this story) that the 21st century will be dominated by China. Can we find other nice clean examples?
    I suggest:
    16th century Spain (on the back of New World gold and silver)

    Anything earlier than this is well short of global impact, due to lack of communications (particularly between the Americas and the rest of the world)
    13th century Mongolia
    8th century expansion of Islam
    1st century BCE Rome
    2nd century BCE Qin
    3rd century BCE Macedonia

    --
    Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    1. Re:Country of the century by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      I remember when people kept bleating that Japan was going to take over the world. Whatever happened to Japan?

    2. Re:Country of the century by LostInTaiwan · · Score: 1

      Um, post WWII Japan after WWII, with its pacifist constitution is a protected state of the US. Japan is also a democracy. None of those is true for China. China is building up its economy and military to directly challenge the US. China believes its prefect blend of authoritarian capitalism is a superior system to our flawed democracy. A better comparison will be to compare China to pre WWII Japan.

    3. Re:Country of the century by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      When American democracy bombs the shit out of neutral country after neutral country, I think maybe we should let China run things for a while. The world has been demanding an end to the era of American bullying for quite some time now. The biggest threat to world peace is American globalism. This is hardly a controversial conclusion nor one unbacked by copious evidence.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    4. Re:Country of the century by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When American democracy bombs the shit out of neutral country after neutral country, I think maybe we should let China run things for a while.

      So China can ruin neutral country after neutral country with their own shit? That's not an improvement unless you really like Szechuan sauce, grinding up tiger bones to make your dick hard, and fake islands.

      The world has been demanding an end to the era of American bullying for quite some time now.

      No, it hasn't. It's been begging for more and more, asking all the time, Please America, come Bully my enemies for me, that's what I want, Please!

      The biggest threat to world peace is American globalism. This is hardly a controversial conclusion nor one unbacked by copious evidence.

      No, the biggest threat to world peace is American nativsim and isolationism. You're actually backwards, like you didn't read the screed of the current ANTI-GLOBALIST American President who is actually the biggest threat to World Peace since the 1988 Olympics. Not to mention World Safety. And whatever good things you want to think about the world.

      Globalism isn't the mantra of the day. It's AMERICA FIRST BITCHES!

      Idiots like you, getting everything ass-backwards are the reasons why half the American South thinks it was the War of Northern Aggression.

    5. Re:Country of the century by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      No, the biggest threat to world peace is American nativsim and isolationism

      The world has been demanding an end to American meddling for quite some time. Maybe you've been watching fake news?

      Fifteen years ago, the prominent political analyst Samuel Huntington, professor of the science of government at Harvard, warned in the establishment journal Foreign Affairs that for much of the world the U.S. was "becoming the rogue superpower... the single greatest external threat to their societies." Shortly after, his words were echoed by Robert Jervis, the president of the American Political Science Association: "In the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States." As we have seen, global opinion supports this judgment by a substantial margin.

      https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2001-07-01/weapons-without-purpose-nuclear-strategy-post-cold-war-era

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  8. As a German ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Who cares?
    Stop thinking in countries! And in US VS THEM. Research never gave a crap about any of that.

    First and foremost, we are humans. And first and foremost, our research is meant to benefit all of us! So no matter if the people who did it happen to be born in an Area that we are told to currently call "China" or an area that we are currently told to call "USA" ... yay! Well done! You are a role model for humans everywhere!

    I can be happy for them, because in any case, I see them as US, not as THEM.

    But maybe my mindset is still a result of our own evil empire imploding. ... *patronizingly* You'll get there. :P

    1. Re:As a German ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, if it *is* an important resource, then some US vs THEM can provide much needed competitive motivation to invest on both sides. As a species, we suck at naturally doing the right thing, so we need tricks like this to make us invest in things we need.

      Of course, the debate may be had whether compute resources are the most worthwhile things to pursue, which is a reason that HPC conferences have in recent years shifted to emphasizing the work being done and less about performance numbers absent of any context of real usefulness. Sure they come up, but center stage is about the specific advances in medical research and such, which is the part that really matters.

    2. Re:As a German ... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      I'm glad to see that Germany is finally leader of the free world now, ever since Trump gave up world leadership when he abandoned the Paris agreement. Although I am getting a bit impatient for Germany to actually lead. The German-Chinese cooperation as promised by Merkel should be getting off the ground by now, no?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:As a German ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm, it looks more like Russia is leading the free world by the nose.

  9. There's always a reason by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    This will change now that Donald Trump is president. If it doesn't I'm sure he'll blame someone else.

  10. What are we trying to accomplish? by istartedi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Should we really be worried about this? Maybe it's heresy here; but what are they doing with these systems? Are the Chinese using them to solve problems that are more interesting and important, or are they just using them to build prestige? Does it really say anything about the country, or are these systems just the computing equivalent of Dubai skyscrapers? Dubai is blowing us away in the skyscraper dept., but I don't want to live there. China might blow us away in flops on these computers, but if they're not doing any interesting science or other applications on them, so what?

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    1. Re:What are we trying to accomplish? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Science??? They're mining bitcoins of course. What more noble use of computing power could there be??

    2. Re:What are we trying to accomplish? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Good question. I think the Chinese will want to keep those answers under wraps, because their probably using a lot of them for military work. Regarding the pissing contest, everyone "games" benchmarks like these. They call it "tuning" for the workload. The exclusive workload in these cases are--waitforit--the benchmarks themselves. So, they're certainly an indication of what one might expect IRL, but, like auto MPG ratings, not the final word.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    3. Re:What are we trying to accomplish? by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      They are doing interesting science. Unlike us here in the US who now have laurel imprints on our fat overweight buttocks, the Chinese are actually thinking about the future. They're going to eat our lunch in every field, in every sector, because we have let fat rich assholes systematically dismantle and destroy everything that used to be innovative in this country. The fat cats have drained so much wealth out of the system that just about everyone starts out in debt. Researchers have to fight for scraps from congress's table. The anti-education/anti-intellectual movement in this country will soon achieve it's holy grail of pushing religious dogma into schools and supplanting science.

      Just look at our president. That's what America is today. An old bloated idiot standing on the front lawn yelling at clouds.

      In another decade or two not only will China be kicking our asses by every conceivable measure, they'll also own this country through the enormous amount of debt fucking morons like Trump and the so-called fiscally conservative Republicans have run up in the name making their buddies richer. The Chinese aren't stupid. They know how this ends, so they're more than happy to keep smiling and watching as we slowly collapse under our own weight.

      --
      ~X~
    4. Re:What are we trying to accomplish? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Why do you sound pissed off? You should be applauding along with the rest of the world as the America bully finally gets his comeuppance. You can't actually believe in any of that USA #1 bullshit, right? It's racist and jingoist to believe in that kind of thing. China deserves its place in the sun and to avoid a destructive war, America needs to gently retire. Britain had the good sense to do this after WWII and it saved a lot of lives, and now it's America's turn. Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    5. Re:What are we trying to accomplish? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      I think he's annoyed that the US has been sold off to rich, rent-seeking dickheads. I can see his point to be honest.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    6. Re:What are we trying to accomplish? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      OK well time to burn it down. China can be world leader and the whole planet will be a better place. Just imagine the loud cheers from every country as America suffers humiliation after humiliation, and most of all imagine the USA #1 morons crying in their shitty watery Lite beers. It's a wonderful future.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    7. Re:What are we trying to accomplish? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      They are using their supercomputers for things like materials science, developing new medicines and therapies, AI systems, climate science, genetic modelling... And the tech trickles down too, both in terms of the hardware that is developed and the techniques developed for managing hugely parallel machines.

      Also, in a few years they will have all the bitcoins.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:What are we trying to accomplish? by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      Should we really be worried about this? Maybe it's heresy here; but what are they doing with these systems? Are the Chinese using them to solve problems that are more interesting and important, or are they just using them to build prestige?M

      Despite what the West likes to think about China, I highly doubt the Chinese are building these just for mere prestige. They are building know-how. We use to do that. Now, if we cannot immediately predict a definite ROI, we do not even bother to investigate, build know-how or develop social capital.

      Does it really say anything about the country, or are these systems just the computing equivalent of Dubai skyscrapers? Dubai is blowing us away in the skyscraper dept., but I don't want to live there. China might blow us away in flops on these computers, but if they're not doing any interesting science or other applications on them, so what?

      Are you sure about that, that they are not doing anything interesting or useful (assuming then that accumulating know-how is not useful in itself.) I'm sorry but comparing Dubai's skyscrapper rush with Chinese cloud computing doesn't even make sense (different beasts, different conditions, different purposes.)

    9. Re:What are we trying to accomplish? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you'd be unpleasantly surprised by what the Chinese government would have planned for their "World Leadership" position. My Chinese friends that have immigrated out to Canada and the US did so for clear reasons. They would NOT like being under Chinese control ever again.

  11. Germany would like to have a word with you ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... And your Anglocentric world view.

    We were the land of the poets and thinkers before those stupit warmongerer degenerates fucjed everything up.
    Our researchers became your researchers then. So we share this trophy.
    And currently, it looks like your researchers are quickly becoming our researchers again. :)

    1. Re:Germany would like to have a word with you ... by JeffOwl · · Score: 1

      I'm with you except for the poet part. Have you read German poetry? The Germans I know don't even like German poetry. Maybe I could at least see an argument for opera or symphony, but Poetry?

      Oblig Ice station Zebra: "The Russians put our camera made by *our* German scientists and your film made by *your* German scientists into their satellite made by *their* German scientists."

    2. Re:Germany would like to have a word with you ... by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      I'm with you except for the poet part. Have you read German poetry?

      The Vogons would like a word with you...

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  12. Aaah, generation humanoid drone...! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because more often than not, you do not want others to watch everything you do down to the last cell.

    But I know... I have no problem with people in my neighborhood seeing me shower or sunbathe naked, but big problems with people making permanent records of that and uploading them to Facebook for everyone to process for all eternity. So the opposite of your generation.

    It has become soo unfashionable with you, to still have anythng for yourself. Especially thoughts/data! Just parrot memes and passive-think and passive-want what you are told to want. That is a real swarm drone's life! Not coal mining! (Tungsten carbide driihii-ills??)

  13. Japan? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They gave up on this world, too many stinking Westerners, instead they've taken over via world with dragons, hot loli princesses, and talking cats.

    Quite the improvement, really.

  14. Lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... staffed by Indians and Chinese and Germans etc. doing research, and with the entire production off-shored to east-Asia.

    Yeah... real American. ^^

    Just like Ferrero is real Italian and Nestle real Swiss! :P

  15. what happened to Japan ? by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 1

    Reagan popped their bubble.

    1. Re:what happened to Japan ? by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      That was the USSR. I'd say Japan popped their own bubble.

  16. Engineering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Supercomputers are used by engineers in various industries. They are doing more engineering than us (and have far more engineers - especially if you count the portion of our engineers that are just on loan from them) so they need more supercomputers. Generally, if you don't make things, you don't need supercomputers. That is why China has more than we do.

    1. Re:Engineering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Problem being that 60-75% of their entries are Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent. Whether as a favor to their vendors or for the national image, they let their resources be used to make China look good.

      This would be akin to Microsoft, Amazon, and Google colluding to use their install footprint to maximize US share on the list. Instead, they are very secretive and screw their vendors over and don't really have any incentive to prop up the story of US as an HPC leader.

  17. China is gaming the list hard. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The majority of the 'distinct systems' are at Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu. It's a massive coordinated manipulation of the list where the vendors intentionally carve out their runs to be more numerous on the list rather than higher on the list. Particularly since none of those are used for scientific computing in any significant capacity. It's all a game to show China as a nation and Chinese computer vendors a sworld leaders in HPC (this time, they cherry picked Inspur to be the golden child of the story).

    If Amazon, MS, and Google cared, well the Top500 would barely have any technical computing installations at all.

  18. more accessible to everyone / collective by aliquis · · Score: 0

    Not democratic.

    It's not the same.

    Democracy doesn't mean belongs to everyone and equally distributed.

    Socialism regardless of what people actually want doesn't mean democracy.

    The "democratic peopleÂs republics" aren't democracies. They are socialist regimes.

  19. Bringing Jobs back to USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know small US Mom and Pop business that out source services to foreign countries because of thheir extreme low labor charges. We need to bring these jobs back to the USA in our Tax code.

    Chris
    Owner CEL Financial Services
    IRS Registered Income Tax Preparation
    Registered bonded California CTEC Tax Preparer
    http://www.taxprepfillmore.com/santa-paula-tax-preparation

  20. Who would have guessed by lucm · · Score: 1

    The year of the Linux supercomputer happened before the year of the Linux desktop.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
    1. Re:Who would have guessed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Evidently, it is easier to build something for smart users, than for dumb users...

    2. Re:Who would have guessed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, yea. It's hard to take a complicated processes and simplify it while being intuitive.

      Power users want options which means less assumptions the developers have to make. One Button To Rule Them All has to be extremely complex under the hood compared to the One Button One Function.

    3. Re:Who would have guessed by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      anyone who has followed supercomputers for more than 20 years knows that, Linux supercomputers existed in the late 1990s.

  21. Expansionism vs China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your list is enlightening:

    > ... 20th century United States
    19th century United Kingdom
    16th century Spain
    13th century Mongolia
    8th century expansion of Islam
    1st century BCE Rome
    2nd century BCE Qin
    3rd century BCE Macedonia ...

    Looking back, all the entries in the list, except one , were expansionistic

    The one which was not, was the - 2nd century BCE Qin - of China. Unlike the others, the Chinese were only interested in killing and smashing kingdom belonging to their own kind of yellow-skinned Chinese

    Hmm...

    Would history repeat itself?

    1. Re:Expansionism vs China by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 1

      My criterion was world-dominant nations, and world domination tends to require expansion. I'm pacifist, so if you want to make a list of countries which achieved great influence without expansionism, I'd be happy to receive it.

      20th C USA and 21st C China are (so far) not so much into expanding their borders, although they are into projecting military and economic power to influence other parts of the world to their advantage. (The non-expansionism is recent: 19th C USA was very much into expanding its borders, and 20th C China nabbed Tibet.)

      I'm not sure I agree with your classification of Qin as non-expansionist.

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
  22. AMERICA MUST BE #1 !!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > ... I think maybe we should let China run things for a while ...

    HELL NO !!!

    AMERICA MUST BE NUMBER 1 OR HILLARY CLINTON WILL WHINE AND BLM WILL RIOT AGAIN !!

  23. Re:CPU design by Maritz · · Score: 1

    That's the most painfully obvious troll I've seen in ages. Try fucking harder.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  24. Re:Where is Africa on the list? by Maritz · · Score: 1

    You think Africa is a country do you?

    Holy shit, you're stupid.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  25. Re:CPU design by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...when it needs knowledge of calculus?

    Hehehe... most advanced math this idiot can name is Calculus, and he's calling other people dumb... Not even smart enough to troll effectively.

  26. Get Behind, Stay Behind by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    Once leadership in any area is established it becomes next to impossible to change the pecking order of dominance. In the past we have seen both the US and Great Britain achieve economic and military dominance. It seems to take a couple of centuries to change that sort of thing. with computers and electronics the problem may be amplified. For example, powerful computers may be used to design ever more powerful computers. Therefore in order to leap beyond another nation one needs to have the most powerful computers already in hand. This same issue may also apply to automation and robotics. In essence if we want the public to do well financially or be safe from foreign enemies we need to clearly dominate the leadership in electronics computing and other areas as well. If we get one step behind we are in huge trouble.

    1. Re:Get Behind, Stay Behind by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Then the big news here is Switzerland overtaking the U.S.A and Japan and moving to #3. Watch out, the future will be a noisy place of yodeling and coo-coo clocks, and your cheese will have empty voids in it.

    2. Re:Get Behind, Stay Behind by JimSadler · · Score: 1

      Jolly old England got ahead and stayed ahead for several hundred years before they lost the number one spot. The US had about 80 years before we lost the number one spot. One would think that the top position would shift every few weeks as new developments take place. But it does not work that way. Money attracts money and power attracts power. A nation with money and power can hold other nations down for centuries. This is a huge factor in the generation of war. A nation feeling that it can be higher in the pecking order than another nation will often attack trying to gain status, money and power. Japan in 1938 was like that. Japan felt that they had the knowledge and ability to do much better but were smothered by a lack of natural resources. There was no way out of that trap other than taking areas that could provide natural resources. Germany was similar. First Germany is cold and thus is limited in crop production. Germany also needed sea ports to export more products. With no way to get more land or more ports the solution appeared to be to take some from other nations. Even after WW2 Germany was thought of as an oddball sort of place by the US public. Instead of realizing just how advanced Germany was in engineering and science they were treated as some sort of oddball or defective people. Children in my generation were in our sand boxes with our toy planes and tanks exterminating the filthy yellow menace. Adults felt it was wonderful that we were out back killing off Tojo and his filthy yellow fiends. Then after dinner, which started with a prayer, we watched the wonderful cowboys kill the disgusting and vile Indians on TV. Or we watched Gunsmoke in which the bad guys got shot or hung. Then we wonder why our citizens are so very willing to gun each other down.

  27. Still skirting Paris acords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They show off computers and advances, but still claim to be a "Developing Nation" when it comes to pollution.
    If you are buying things "Made in China", you are contributing to Global Warming and pollution.
    ABC - Anywhere But China.

  28. Re: You will bankrupt yourselves trying to keep up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Crime rates in the US overall have been reducing dramatically over the years. Look it up.

  29. America thinks it's a competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This says it all: The growth of China and the decline of the United States within the Top 500 has prompted the U.S. Department of Energy to doll out $258 million in grants to several tech companies to develop exascale systems.

    To China and the rest of the world it's about science for the greater good and benefit of everyone, but to Americans it's a competition. They have to win. Well, this is the 21st century so you had better learn to suck it up and swallow, because it's going to happen a lot when China enters your little competitions.