China builds world’s fastest supercomputer without U.S. chips
China’s massive system runs real applications and is ‘not just a stunt machine,’ says top U.S. supercomputing researcher

By Patrick Thibodeau
Senior Editor, Computerworld
JUNE 20, 2016 03:13 AM PT
China's Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer
Jack Dongarra, Report on the Sunway TaihuLight System, June 2016
China on Monday revealed its latest supercomputer, a monolithic system with 10.65 million compute cores built entirely with Chinese microprocessors. This follows a U.S. government decision last year to deny China access to Intel's fastest microprocessors.

There is no U.S.-made system that comes close to the performance of China's new system, the Sunway TaihuLight. Its theoretical peak performance is 124.5 petaflops, according to the latest biannual release today of the world's Top500 supercomputers. It is the first system to exceed 100 petaflops. A petaflop equals one thousand trillion (one quadrillion) sustained floating-point operations per second.

The most important thing about Sunway TaihuLight may be its microprocessors. In the past, China has relied heavily on U.S. microprocessors in building its supercomputing capacity. The world's next fastest system, China's Tianhe-2, which has a peak performance of 54.9 petaflops, uses Intel Xeon processors.

[ Related: Meet Project Honolulu, Microsoft’s new Windows Server management GUI ]
TaihuLight, which is installed at China's National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, uses ShenWei CPUs developed by Jiangnan Computing Research Lab in Wuxi. The operating system is a Linux-based Chinese system called Sunway Raise.

The TaihuLight is "very impressive," said Jack Dongarra, a professor of computer science at the University of Tennessee and one of the academic leaders of the Top500 supercomputing list, in a report about the new system.

TaihuLight is running "sizeable applications," which include advanced manufacturing, earth systems modeling, life science and big data applications, said Dongarra. This "shows that the system is capable of running real applications and [is] not just a stunt machine," Dongarra said.

It has been long known that China was developing a 100-plus petaflop system, and it was believed that China would turn to U.S. chip technology to reach this performance level. But just over a year ago, in a surprising move, the U.S. banned Intel from supplying Xeon chips to four of China's top supercomputing research centers.

The U.S. initiated this ban because China, it claimed, was using its Tianhe-2 system for nuclear explosive testing activities. The U.S. stopped live nuclear testing in 1992 and now relies on computer simulations. Critics in China suspected the U.S. was acting to slow that nation's supercomputing development efforts.

Four months after the Intel ban, in July 2015, the White House issued an executive order creating a "national strategic computing initiative" with the goal of maintaining an "economic leadership position" in high-performance computing research.

The U.S. order seemed late. China has been steadily building its supercomputing capacity, which included efforts to develop its own microprocessors. It produced a relatively small supercomputer in 2011 that relied on homegrown processors, but its big systems continued to rely on U.S. processors.

There has been nothing secretive about China's intentions. Researchers and analysts have been warning all along that U.S. exascale (an exascale is 1,000 petaflops) development, supercomputing's next big milestone, was lagging.

It's not just China that is racing ahead. Japan and Russia have their own development efforts. Europe is building supercomputers using ARM processors, and, similar to China, wants to decrease its dependency on U.S.-made chips.

China's government last week said it plans to build an exascale system by 2020. The U.S. has targeted 2023.

China now has more supercomputers in the Top500 list than the U.S., said Dongarra. "China has 167 systems on the June 2016 Top500 list compared to 165 systems in the U.S," he said, in an email. Ten years ago, China had 10 systems on the list.

Of all the supercomputers represented on the global list, the sum of the China supercomputers performance (211 petaflops) has exceeded the performance of the supercomputers in the U.S., (173 petaflops) represented on this list. The list doesn't represent the universe of all supercomputers in the U.S. None of the supercomputers used by intelligence agencies, for instance, are represented on this list.

"This is the first time the U.S. has lost the lead," said Dongarra, in the total number of systems on the Top500 list.

China's work is also winning global peer recognition. It's work on TaihuLight has resulted in three submissions selected as finalists for supercomputing's prestigious Gordon Bell Award, named for a pioneer in high-performance computing.

The fastest U.S. supercomputer, number 3 on the Top500 list, is the Titan, a Cray supercomputer at U.S. Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory with a theoretical peak of about 27 petaflops.

Whether the U.S. chip ban accelerated China's resolve to develop its own microprocessor technology is a question certain to get debate. But what is clear is China's longstanding goal to end reliance on U.S. technology.

"The Chinese were already determined over time to move to an indigenous processor," said Steve Conway, a high performance computing analyst at IDC. "I think the ban accelerates that -- it increases that determination," he said.

HPC has become increasingly important in the economy. Once primarily the domain of big science research, national security and high-end manufacturing such as airplane design, HPC's virtualization and big data analysis capabilities have made it critical in almost every industry. Manufacturers of all sizes, increasingly, are using supercomputers to design products virtually instead of building prototypes. Supercomputer are also used in applications such as fraud detection and big data analysis.

HPC has is now "so strategic that you really don't want to rely on foreign sources for it," said Conwayhttps://www.computerworld.com/article/3085483/china-builds-world-s-fastest-supercomputer-without-u-s-chips.html

I need competitor's in the I.T world, it lesson a lot of digital monopoly.

Complacency will gradually kill US in the nearest future if they don't take to cognisance the power of China in the technology industry.

You'll be surprised to know that USA has a processor 200% faster than theirs, reserved. hahahaha.. no be American wey we know? China always showing up to gain world sympathy and recognition with semi standard tech. Huawei did the same in their P20 camera advertisement, what they advertised was not what we saw. This world is deep.

Meanwhile.. Nigeria builds what exactly??

Can't wait for Huawei to make a Rival chipset architecture to rival that of ARM

China doesn't need usa,
But USA can't do without Chinese technology

Wiziman:
You'll be surprised to know that USA has a processor 200% faster than theirs, reserved. hahahaha.. no be American wey we know? China always showing up to gain world sympathy and recognition with semi standard tech. Huawei did the same in their P20 camera advertisement, what they advertised was not what we saw. This world is deep.

America is overrated

Sofistcatdmoron:
China doesn't need usa,
But USA can't do without Chinese technology

Which technology does china have?




China is still an underdeveloped country lest you forget...

With China, the US is playing a "Losing" game.

China is effectively a Hegemon in Asia, a key trading partner to most countries in Europe and south America and a Neo-colonial master/trade and development partner in Africa.

Almost everyone owes the Chinese.

The US might soon be left holding the bag if they push too hard.

US. tech is superb, but China replicates extremely well, and the replicas are pretty good and affordable too.

However, when China builds "originals" they don't mess around either.


Trump has to calm down and accept the fact that China is definitely not Iran.

Case in point, the ban on HUAWEI TECH. Most US companies have boycotted the ban (even if some are patronising secretly).

Two dragons can't tussle without both being unscathed.

people wey dey say China this China that, me I know America, I know what they are capable of!

lilbest4:
America is overrated

Which areas are they overrated?

domino4211:
Meanwhile..
Nigeria builds what exactly??

Cattlle Ranch
Praying Mat

chloride6:

Which technology does china have?


China is still an underdeveloped country lest you forget...

No need arguing with these guys

E don already de happen

America want to do like the East India trading company of the past times that almost conquered earth. They want to be the greatest nation on earth and despite his gallant efforts, Trump is just not going to get them there with is protectionist tactics of the American economy.

It's pissing other countries off spurring them to be less reliant on the US. This is the antithesis of what Obama and Clinton wanted, they preferred collaboration towards global trade breaking down barriers. Instead here is this buffoon with fake hair pointing fingers and setting up walls to close up borders.

Chinatown.... Heaven on Earth.

Wiziman:
You'll be surprised to know that USA has a processor 200% faster than theirs, reserved. hahahaha.. no be American wey we know? China always showing up to gain world sympathy and recognition with semi standard tech. Huawei did the same in their P20 camera advertisement, what they advertised was not what we saw. This world is deep.

Hey American sympathiser, stop being sentimental

abdeiz:



Hey American sympathiser, stop being sentimental

How am I talking with feelings?

domino4211:
Meanwhile..
Nigeria builds what exactly??

They are so many..

Tooth pick

Bush meat pepper soup

Jollof Rice

PalmWine

Coden..........................

chloride6:


Which technology does china have?




China is still an underdeveloped country lest you forget...

So you think they are like the shithole we both live in its like you don't know what Wikipedia is Check it and read it

usa wont like dis

chloride6:


Which technology does china have?




China is still an underdeveloped country lest you forget...

China is ruling the world technology now bro,
Every USA tech company in one way or the other is tapping from china

Make research bro, u have internet with u

https://www.quora.com/Who-is-more-technologically-advanced-The-USA-or-China

I do laugh at Trumps Nigerian supporters when i read their comments on CNN Fox News and Aljazerra social media pages.... even the real Americans think of them as African fools.

If this deplorables stop for using American Fiction Movies and film tricks as bases of their blind aeguiments they realise with reality on ground America is overrated.

In terms of Economy

US vs China (compare debt to gdp, GDP to per.capital, etc)

In terms of Infrastructure
US vs China (compare Chinas bullet trains and US rusty bucket of a subway, ) (compare bridges, smart cities, rate of city growth and you would understand US.a presently stucked in the past)

In terms of Technology

US vs China ( how many non imigrant or foriegners are responsible for US technogy compared to indigenous Chinese inventors.. US lash on to Isreali chip makers, African and Asian Medical personell, mexican cheap labour to survive, most KKK trump supporters are uneducated drunks that wait on government benefits, same as their gheto black negros)



.




.

domino4211:
Meanwhile.. Nigeria builds what exactly??

Ruga settlements.

topcatking:
With China, the US is playing a "Losing" game.

China is effectively a Hegemon in Asia, a key trading partner to most countries in Europe and south America and a Neo-colonial master/trade and development partner in Africa.

Almost everyone owes the Chinese.

The US might soon be left holding the bag if they push too hard.

US. tech is superb, but China replicates extremely well, and the replicas are pretty good and affordable too.

However, when China builds "originals" they don't mess around either.


Trump has to calm down and accept the fact that China is definitely not Iran.

Case in point, the ban on HUAWEI TECH. Most US companies have boycotted the ban (even if some are patronising secretly).

Two dragons can't tussle without both being unscathed.

America had nothing to gain from the ban, it was a 100% loss for America whether Huawei survived or collapsed

Interesting!

When something is meant to happen, there nothing we can do to stop it!!


I see china becoming the world power house in the nearest future

We are only consumers of technology not makers. Competition will only make technology reliable and cheaper.

Wiziman:
Which areas are they overrated?

China is technically way more advanced than usa anytime any day , u have Internet in your hands make research bro