China builds world’s fastest supercomputer without U.S. chips

Listen to Military Veteran Talk Radio
iHeart.SmythRadio.com
Facebook.com/SmythRadio

www.computerworld.com

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 Top500supercomputers. 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.

TaihuLight, which is installed at China'sNational 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 alongthat 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 Conway.

COMMENTS

KIM JUNG UN GOES H-BOMB NUCLEAR

North Korea: We now have the 'H-bomb of justice'

www.cnbc.com

North Korea Wednesday tested a hydrogen nuclear bomb, state news agency KCNA reported, marking the politically-isolated country's first nuclear test in three years, a move that received condemnation from the U.S., Britain and Japan among others.

The report on the KCNA website came within hours of reports from various agencies that a large earthquake had been detected near a known North Korean nuclear test site.

According to KCNA, North Korea tested a miniaturized hydrogen nuclear bomb "in the most perfect manner," putting it in possession of hydrogen bomb capability, which it described as "the most powerful nuclear deterrent."

North Korea wanted what it called "the H-bomb of justice" as protection from the "ever-growing nuclear threat and blackmail by the U.S.-led hostile forces," according to the statement on KCNA.

It would use the weapons only if its sovereignty was encroached upon, the statement on KCNA said, but would not roll back its nuclear development until the U.S. had dropped its "vicious, hostile" policy toward the isolated Communist state.

"The U.S. is a gang of cruel robbers which has worked hard to bring even a nuclear disaster to the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korean], not content with having imposed the thrice-cursed and unheard-of political isolation, economic blockade and military pressure on it for the mere reason that it has differing ideology and social system," according to the statement.

"The present-day grim reality clearly proves once again the immutable truth that one's destiny should be defended by one's own efforts," the statement went on. "Nothing is more foolish than dropping a hunting gun before herds of ferocious wolves."

This is North Korea's first nuclear test since February 2013 and the fourth it has conducted in all.

DigitalGlobe | ScapeWare3d | Contributor An April 2015 photo of new nuclear test tunnel under construction at the Punggye-ri site. Japan reacts with anger

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe quickly condemned the test.

Abe said that Japan "absolutely cannot tolerate" a North Korean nuclear test, which he called a threat to Japan's security. Japan will make a firm response to North Korea's move, he added.

Shortly after, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said that North Korea would "pay the price" for its nuclear test, and that it would seek additional United Nations (U.N.) sanctions against its neighbor.

At the same time, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap, government officials noted that they needed to perform additional tests to ascertain that North Korea had actually tested a hyrdrogen nuclear device.

Intelligence sources told Yonhap that the device tested may not have been a H-bomb, while other Korean media cited defense sources as saying that North Korea may have added a small amount of hydrogen to the device tested..

Reuters reported that the Korean Meteorological Administration had detected no radiation from the apparent test.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond said that such a test would be a "grave breach" of U.N. resolutions; North Korea is already under U.N. sanctions for having conducted previous nuclear tests, the first as early as 2006.

China's state news agency, Xinhua, wrote that the test was at odds with the goal of de-nuclearization, adding that any action that disrupted the stability of Northeast Asia was "undesirable and unwise." Xinhua is often read as a reflection of the thoughts of China's leaders.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department condemned the apparent breach of U.N. sanctions.

Reuters reported that the U.N. Security Council would hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday at 11 a.m. ET (4 p.m. GMT) to discuss the test, at the request of the U.S. and Japan.

Earthquake shakes won

Word of the nuclear test emerged shortly after 9 a.m. SIN/HK, when the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said it had detected a magnitude 5.1 earthquake about 49 kilometers (30 miles) a known North Korean nuclear test site, according to its coordinates. The USGS said that earthquake, near the site called Punggye-ri, was about 10km below the earth's surface.

The Korean Meteorological Administration, meanwhile, said that it detected the epicentre of the quake at a depth of "0 kilometers." It put the magnitude at 4.2.

Follow CNBC International on Twitter andFacebook.

COMMENTS

Everything You Need to Know About Iraq, WMD and GWB Vindication

    It's year six of the Obama Administration. It seems so long ago that the previous embattled president limped across the finish line having been beaten down for five years over cascading failures that all seem to lead to a common source: No weapons of mass destruction were found during the time we were fighting and occupying Iraq. Eventually Bush and his administration were forced to admit that it appeared as though all of the intelligence was wrong.

    It's important to point out a few things to keep the record straight. First of all, nobody in the Bush Administration "LIED" about WMD. This may come as a surprise to brainwashed Democrats and Low Information Voters, but the fact of that matter is that all you need to know is what was believed and the definition of "lie". To lie, one must knowingly make a false statement. Everyone believed Saddam Hussein had WMD. For starters, he not only had WMD, he USED them to kill 5000 men, women and children in 1988. In 1998, Bill Clinton called Iraq "a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists." If you watch the video below, you'll see that calling Bush a liar for selling to the world that Iraq had WMD or was an imminent threat to be a nuclear power would be calling some of the most powerful Democrats of the past decades liars too:

In addition, many of these claims by Democrats were made in the 1990's while George Bush was only a Governor, so the liberal accusations that Bush was the one behind these beliefs is nonsense.

    The second point to be made is that the war with Iraq starting in 2003 was an internationally, LEGALLY justifiable war. In fact it was simply a continuation of the Gulf War that began in 1990:

• 8/26/1988 UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 620 condemned Iraq's use of chemical weapons (WMD)
• 8/2/1990 UNSCR 660 condemning Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and demanding immediate withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait
• 11/29/1990 UNSCR 678 authorizing use of force to uphold UNSCR 660
• 4/3/1991 UNSCR 687 formal ceasefire ON THE CONDITION THAT IRAQ:
• Agrees to destroy all Chemical and Biological weapons
• Agrees not to develop Nuclear weapons
• Submits a declaration of its weapons programs and voluntarily agrees to on-site inspections.
• 4/5/1991 - 12/17/1999 TEN (10) UN Security Council Resolutions were passed, most of which dealt with Saddam's uncooperative behavior with regards to UNSCR 687
• Dec 1998 - Nov 2002 there was a complete ABSENCE of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq
• 11/8/2002 UNSCR 1441 gives Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with" UNSCR 687
• 3/7/2003 Hans Blix announced that Saddam was still in material breach of UNSCR 687. However, the corruption in the UNSC members that held veto power made passing another resolution to lift the ceasefire of UNSC 687 impossible. 
• 3/20/2003 The "Coalition of the Willing" invaded Iraq, unofficially voiding the UNSC's half of the ceasefire with Saddam (remember, Saddam already voided HIS half of the deal).

    So as you can see, the Iraq War of 2003 was clearly a continuation of the more noble (in the eyes of the UNSC), Gulf War of 1990-91. Not only was it justified, but it should have been done sooner.

    And the last point I wanted to make to keep the record straight, is the answer to the question: Why in 2003? Why not sooner? If Saddam was officially in violation of UNSCR 687 as early as August of 1991 (according to UNSCR 707), then why was nothing serious done until 2003? Well besides the fact that corrupt veto holders at the UN made passing a use of force resolution increasingly difficult, I think a better answer to that question is the attitude of the times. The decade in America between the Collapse of the Berlin Wall and Soviet Union and victory in the Gulf War all the way to the .com bubble bursting in 2000 and 9/11/2001 was without question, the most high-spirited, care-free and peaceful time in American history. I lived the prime of my youth and adulthood during the decade from 1990-2000. I also served in the USMC during this time (1994-1998). I know what the political and economic climate was at the time like no other. There was a sense of naivety about the evils of the world that I not only miss, but also feel bad about knowing that nobody in subsequent generations had the blessings of experiencing it. And boy did it come crashing down on September 11, 2001. That day is the day American innocence was lost. We were angry. Some wanted revenge. I remember serious calls for use of nuclear weapons against whoever was responsible. But more importantly, having recently completing 4 years of military under Clinton, I was VERY concerned that our response was going to be to send two cruise missiles to blow up an unoccupied aspirin factory in Afghanistan and call it a day. I really worried that we were just going to take it like a country hoss too big to notice the wasp that stung him.

    To my relief, George W. Bush took it seriously. It wasn't going to be a slap on the wrist like President Clinton did so many times before. It was going to be a show of massive force. He made the case to the world that he was going to clean up that part of the world. 

    We all know that anyone with half a brain knows it was not Saddam Hussein that attacked us on 9/11. But it was obvious to a HUGE majority in America at the time that given the circumstances of 9/11 and our involvement in Afghanistan, we were absolutely NOT about to put up with a Middle Eastern Dictator who has a history of WMD usage, who refused to comply with UN Security Council resolutions - resolutions that were put in place due to a war that HE was responsible for!

    Now that you know the WHOLE background story about Iraq, let's fast forward to April of 2005: The CIA's top weapons inspector in Iraq reported that there were NO WMD found in Iraq. It seemed more like a final conclusion. It was certainly a final nail in the coffin of the Bush presidency that would have the most grueling and longest pathetically lame duck session imaginable. Making matters worse, Bush's refusal to defend any of his actions or respond to any criticism during this period was so disheartening to the right, and so motivating to the left that it most assuredly played a major roll in the Democratic Presidential Nominee, Senator Barack Obama defeating Republican challenger, Senator John McCain. In fact, Senator Obama ran on the platform of "pulling out of Iraq":

    Unfortunately, tens of thousands of American trained Iraqis have been murdered. US service members feel they have sacrificed their life, limb and sanity in vain. Obama's incompetent decision to pull out of Iraq when and how he did caused a situation where terrorist group ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) have nearly completely taken over all of Iraq outside of the inner city of Baghdad (as of the time of this article) This has effectively set the stage where the same type of radicals that killed over 3000 innocent people on American soil will not only lead their own country, but have the kind of funding though oil revenue that they could have only dreamed of if Saddam Hussein himself sponsored all of their activities. Did I mention that President Obama has released the "Dream Team" of terrorist leaders from Guantanamo Bay prison back to the Middle East?

    Compounding this threat to America is the fact that Obama has completely opened the southern border with Mexico thanks to his orchestrated invasion. This flood of humanity has no doubt made it much easier for a Middle Eastern terrorist to get lost in the shuffle. But I digress.

    On June 20, 2014, reports from multiple independent sources said that ISIS in Iraq found Saddam Hussein's WMD stockpile! So it turns out EVERYONE (not just Bush) was right about Saddam's WMD. The big difference is that Bush was excoriated while he did the right thing morally, legally and strategically regardless of whether Saddam had them or not.

Nuclear VS Thorium - Which is Complete BS and Which WINS !!

A debate rages on which is the best power type that should be used.  Well this is the greatest video we have ever seen that illustrates which is best.  Enjoy.

cc