Chinese supercomputer is the world's fastest — and without using US chips - Polidicks

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/ewITYWc.jpg?1[/IMG] [QUOTE]A Chinese supercomputer built using domestic chip technology has been declared the world's fastest. The news highlights China's recent advances in the creation of such systems, as well the country's waning reliance on US semiconductor technology. The Sunway TaihuLight takes the top spot from previous record-holder Tianhe-2 (also located in China), and more than triples the latter's speed. The new number one is capable of performing some 93 quadrillion calculations per second (otherwise known as petaflops) and is roughly five times more powerful than the speediest US system, which is now ranked third worldwide. The TaihuLight is comprised of some 41,000 chips, each with 260 processor cores. This makes for a total of 10.65 million cores, compared to the 560,000 cores in America's top machine. In terms of memory, it's relatively light on its feet, with just 1.3 petabytes used for the entire machine. (By comparison, the much less powerful 10-petaflop K supercomputer uses 1.4 petabytes of RAM.) This means it's unusually energy efficient, drawing just 15.3 megawatts of power — less than the 17.8 megawatts used by the 33-petaflop Tianhe-2. More significantly than its specs, though, is the fact that the TaihuLight is built from Chinese semiconductors. "It’s not based on an existing architecture. They built it themselves," Jack Dongarra, a professor at the University of Tennessee and creator of the measurement system used to rank the world's supercomputers, told Bloomberg. "This is a system that has Chinese processors."[/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/20/11975356/chinese-supercomputer-worlds-fastes-taihulight"]Source[/URL].

This is a race I can get behind between the US and China. One that advances technology without creating weapons. Go China!

How many years until we're laughing at this because our smartphones are faster?

also comparing # of cores doesn't give you the exact measurement of it's speed. 10mil cores compared to 500k cores doesn't mean that the 10mil are significantly faster than the 500k. It just means that the super computer can do 9.5m more things at one time than the 500k one can, but perhaps the chips on the 500k one are faster. Of course, in this situation, the chinese one has been declared faster but I'm just saying the number of cores isn't really a good metric to determine the speed of a computer. there are a ton of other architectural elements to consider as well, but I'm struggling to remember them from my CS class in sophomore year

[quote]. "It’s not based on an existing architecture. They built it themselves,"[/quote] $$$ custom chip production is absurdly expensive, thats why US super computers usually use next year's graphics or processor chips instead [editline]20th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=proboardslol;50556983]This is a race I can get behind between the US and China. One that advances technology without creating weapons. Go China![/QUOTE] um this is... all about weapons..... these super computers are used for every kind of weapon design optimization you could think of, from CFD, to simulation of nuclear bomb blasts, to complicated war game scenarios. The more computers you have, the better your weapons can get

[QUOTE=Dr.C;50556992]How many years until we're laughing at this because our smartphones are faster?[/QUOTE] I doubt it. 10m cores means millions of processors connected to one another, not a single chip with 10m processors. I'm sure there's some more theory on how to get transistors smaller and smaller, but 10m cores on one chip sounds pretty fucking hard to do. The only way to make them this fast would be to make each core faster. It's a tradeoff between speed and concurrency. You can calculate it yourself with some fake values using Amdahl's law: [url]https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Estimating-CPU-Performance-using-Amdahls-Law-619/[/url]

But can it run you-know-what?

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;50557022]But can it run you-know-what?[/QUOTE] If they're using a custom chipset, then it's probably a custom instruction set, which means that no, it probably can't run any form of Doom unless you were to cross compile it to this thing, and assuming a C compiler exists for this and they're not micro-optimizing everything in assembly or some scientific language like Fortran

[QUOTE=proboardslol;50557040]If they're using a custom chipset, then it's probably a custom instruction set, which means that no, it probably can't run any form of Doom unless you were to cross compile it to this thing, and assuming a C compiler exists for this and they're not micro-optimizing everything in assembly or some scientific language like Fortran[/QUOTE] Port Dosbox over but simulate an 80486 machine at transistor level. Then run OG Doom. :v: Truly a noble and useful purpose for this machine.

[QUOTE=proboardslol;50557040]If they're using a custom chipset, then it's probably a custom instruction set, which means that no, it probably can't run any form of Doom unless you were to cross compile it to this thing, and assuming a C compiler exists for this and they're not micro-optimizing everything in assembly or some scientific language like Fortran[/QUOTE] what about crisis

[QUOTE=Dr.C;50556992]How many years until we're laughing at this because our smartphones are faster?[/QUOTE] I am from the year 2640, my phone implant uses wormhole tech and it is faster.

Oh fuck, something beat Tianhe-2? Awesome. China's really leading the way.

[QUOTE=proboardslol;50556983]This is a race I can get behind between the US and China. One that advances technology without creating weapons. Go China![/QUOTE] Are you a fan of F1? You should be if you like these kinds of "races"

The US/Chinese military and national security agencies probably have better supercomputers than this to be honest, I would question the title

[QUOTE=proboardslol;50557040]If they're using a custom chipset, then it's probably a custom instruction set, which means that no, it probably can't run any form of Doom unless you were to cross compile it to this thing, and assuming a C compiler exists for this and they're not micro-optimizing everything in assembly or some scientific language like Fortran[/QUOTE] A C compiler almost certainly exists. Much like DOOM, C will run on anything because people just want that shit. Assuming a custom instruction set is in use, there's no real reason they couldn't just port the C compiler over as they'd know what it needs to do and having access to C alone would make developing simulation software easier (or FORTRAN, or whatever really once you get either of those running). [editline]20th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50557171]What happens to the old super computers? We could totally use them for mass-streaming[/QUOTE] Probably donated to research institutes that can't afford the hottest new cluster computers (a place I worked on my masters at recently installed a bitching fast one, fastest of its kind in Europe I think?). Or they get mangled and used in other supercomputer projects if the hardware is standard enough.

[QUOTE=hexpunK;50557215] Probably donated to research institutes that can't afford the hottest new cluster computers (a place I worked on my masters at recently installed a bitching fast one, fastest of its kind in Europe I think?). Or they get mangled and used in other supercomputer projects if the hardware is standard enough.[/QUOTE] I imagine the fairly old supercomputers are also massively inefficient power-wise compared to newer ones.

[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50557171]What happens to the old super computers? We could totally use them for mass-streaming[/QUOTE] they are used for the things they are built for, like doing mass calculations

Thinking about it now, the computer probably runs some kind of linux so it's obvious that they'd have a C compiler for it

[QUOTE=The freeman;50557660]I imagine the fairly old supercomputers are also massively inefficient power-wise compared to newer ones.[/QUOTE] From what a friend who studied over in the USA for a year said, there's pretty much just one big network of super computers that research groups and universities without their own machines can connect to, handled entirely by the government or something. I suspect that these unwanted machines get absorbed into that if nobody at all can afford to run them. So I suppose power inefficiency isn't that big a deal. We do have some similar in the UK. But any university worth it's salt will have hacked together a low-level cluster on campus because [I]fuck[/I] waiting for those other nerds to finish, I need work done now dammit!

[QUOTE=proboardslol;50557716]Thinking about it now, the computer probably runs some kind of linux so it's obvious that they'd have a C compiler for it[/QUOTE] Runs linux. source: [url]http://www.netlib.org/utk/people/JackDongarra/PAPERS/sunway-report-2016.pdf[/url]

[QUOTE=Dr.Critic;50557194]The US/Chinese military and national security agencies probably have better supercomputers than this to be honest, I would question the title[/QUOTE] Eh debatable. The NSA's massive analytics machines are probably more specialized. Remember, super computers are gigantic black boxes, you put your problem in and they spit out answers, that's all theyre good for [editline]20th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=The freeman;50557660]I imagine the fairly old supercomputers are also massively inefficient power-wise compared to newer ones.[/QUOTE] Debatable, they only just have reached a point where power consumption has been an issue, I think the last major US computer was the first where power efficiency was part of the design criteria otherwise it's been another scaling factor. Old supercomputers aren't exactly trashed either, usually they're either pieces out in clusters or used as the basis for the next computer.

[QUOTE=The freeman;50557660]I imagine the fairly old supercomputers are also massively inefficient power-wise compared to newer ones.[/QUOTE] Depends how far you go back. My eight 250mhz processor, 8gb Silicon Graphics Origin 2000 used to be in the Supercomputer range in the late 90's and the larger machines were the fastest in the world (and cost about $750000 for my specific configuration) but it consumes almost 1700w of power and gives off about 8000BTU of heat. Back when Bitcoin mining was a thing anyone could try we tried it on this hardware and we were being smoked by the Intel Atom in every possible way. Even SETI@home was occasionally a chore. :v:

It's like a new better supercomputer is built nearly every month now. Moore's Law?

[QUOTE=Sableye;50557766]Eh debatable. The NSA's massive analytics machines are probably more specialized. Remember, super computers are gigantic black boxes, you put your problem in and they spit out answers, that's all theyre good for [editline]20th June 2016[/editline] Debatable, they only just have reached a point where power consumption has been an issue, I think the last major US computer was the first where power efficiency was part of the design criteria otherwise it's been another scaling factor. Old supercomputers aren't exactly trashed either, usually they're either pieces out in clusters or used as the basis for the next computer.[/QUOTE] The NSA uses quantum computers, which are designed to computer a handful of combinatorics problems, such as cryptanalysis. However, they are not good for general purpose problems like these supercomputers are

This is all because the US stepped in to stop Intel from selling chips to the Chinese.

Honestly considering it's a custom chipset, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a supercomputer that's amazing at beating benchmarks, but actually has worse real life performance. That was actually an issue a few years back, where the "record" supercomps were actually worse.

but... will it run ArmA 3 on Ultra with over 60fps.

[QUOTE=Boilrig;50558776]This is all because the US stepped in to stop Intel from selling chips to the Chinese.[/QUOTE] Would be interesting if in a few years it leads to Intel and AMD getting a Chinese competitor in the consumer market.

[QUOTE=AntonioR;50559443]Would be interesting if in a few years it leads to Intel and AMD getting a Chinese competitor in the consumer market.[/QUOTE] As much as China doesn't give a shit about patent law I think unlicensed consumer x86 is a bit too much.

[QUOTE=dimitrik129;50559086]but... will it run ArmA 3 on Ultra with over 60fps.[/QUOTE] It's a supercomputer, not a miracle worker.