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

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-sheriff-in-town dept.

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.

6 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

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      Table-ized A.I.
    2. 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."

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      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. 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.

  2. 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?

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    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  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.