Supercomputer Will Manage Nuclear Weapons

[Blackwell Stith]

Supercomputer Will Manage Nuclear Weapons

Cray Incorporated has an expansive history in developing extreme capability computers.

Seattle based Cray Inc has agreed to build a supercomputer that will be put in charge of this nation's nuclear arms. The National Nuclear Security Administration contracted the company to build Trinity, which is projected to be the world's fastest supercomputer, for $174 million.

Trinity will be located at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and will be designed with both a multi-petaflop supercomputing system and a multi-petabyte Cray Sonexion storage system. This system will include an 82 petabyte capacity and 1.7 terabytes per second of continuous performance, as well as system scalability from 5 gigabytes per second to more than a terabyte per second in a single file system.

Cray also stated that Trinity will be vertically integrated. In a statement, CEO Peter Ungaro said, "For certain applications, such as modeling, simulation and certain types of analytics, a vertically integrated system works best. That's because those applications often rely on sequential calculations that must be completed in a certain order."

Once active, Trinity will assist the NNSA in keeping stockpiles at an optimum state. Virtual simulations could be used to test the efficiency of nuclear weapons in a more accurate fashion. It has yet to be announced whether the supercomputer will be in charge of actually managing its stockpile in the event of a nuclear conflict.

Because of its role in the NNSA Advance Simulation and Computing Program, Trinity will require collaboration between the Los Alamos National Laboratory's New Mexico Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale and the Sandia National Laboratories. Both organizations have worked with Cray in the past- most recently with the Ceilo (the supercomputer currently used by the NNSA that Trinity will replace).

Cray intends on completing Trinity in a year. The machine is projected to be eight times faster than its predecessor.

Share your opinions in the comments!

Source: Top Tech News [http://www.toptechnews.com/article/index.php?story_id=023002CUYAYB]

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[Veldel]

NB4SKYNET


OT: Sounds like a hell of a computer I wish I had it for gaming

 

[Astalano]

One supercomputer in charge of ALL the nuclear weapons?

There is no way this could end badly. No sir.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

Having two of these supercomputers would be crazy.


OT: Trinity is still going on? I thought it was completed after the late 70s.

 

[Under_your_bed]

I for one bow before our glorious machine overlords! I wish it to be known that I welcome them with open arms and am willing to serve them as their worthless fleshy minion!

[sub][sub]Please don't hurt me....[/sub][/sub]

 

[Aconite333]

Isn't this how I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream started?

i.e. an AM reference.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Giving a computer control over our nuclear weapons stockpiles?

That shits cray!

That out of the way, how much do I have to pay to a a petabyte of storage?

In trying to find out, I found this fun article: http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/9/11/how-big-is-a-petabyte-exabyte-zettabyte-or-a-yottabyte.html

 

[Jandau]

If I ever end up at the head of a company given a contract to design a supercomputer to manage a nuclear arsenal, I'd call it Skynet, just to see what happens. I mean, everyone's gonna make the reference regardless of what I call it, so I might as well just go for it myself.

 

[youji itami]

One supercomputer in charge of ALL the nuclear weapons?

There is no way this could end badly. No sir.

It's not for controlling the weapons it's for measuring there state of decay so that we know if the ones that were manufactured years ago would still work if used 10 years from now.

 

[Dragonheart57]

Maybe people should read the article more carefully before they start to worry about Skynet/AM nuking the world. The computer only manages stockpiles, not the firing of the missiles. I would think that there are better things we could do with the world's fastest supercomputer, but it is interesting nonetheless.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Yes, but did Cray order Fish-fil-a?

...

...

Door's over there right?

OT: It's kinda weird hearing about petabytes now just when I got used to Terabytes, but then again with that kind of information being used I'm not at all surprised. I would imagine you would need that kind of processing to manage something like that, even if I can think up of better ways to use an uber-machine like that.

 

[Agayek]

If I ever end up at the head of a company given a contract to design a supercomputer to manage a nuclear arsenal, I'd call it Skynet, just to see what happens. I mean, everyone's gonna make the reference regardless of what I call it, so I might as well just go for it myself.

Agreed. That would be more than a little hilarious. Somebody made it happen.

 

[AndrewC]

Spoiler

It looks like you're trying to defend yourself, let me install this Windows update that accidentally fires off all the missiles.

 

[RA92]

... designed with both a multi-petaflop supercomputing system and a multi-petabyte Cray Sonexion storage system. This system will include an 82 petabyte capacity and 1.7 terabytes per second of continuous performance, as well as system scalability from 5 gigabytes per second to more than a terabyte per second in a single file system.

But can it run Crysis?

Hey, if you're allowed your 1984 movie references, I'm allowed my 2007 video game meme.

 

[VoidWanderer]

*TAKING ALL BETS*

'Accidental' Terminator OR 'Accidental' Fall-Out?

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Only one thing comes to mind.

Shall we play a game?

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Obligatory:

Seriously I think they want to make Skynet happen because they've seen the films or know enough about them to think they understand that they can control an AI that's in control of nukes, almost like they really want T2 to happen down to detail.

 

[frizzlebyte]

Props to the engineering team for giving it a very appropriate name. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)]

In any case: yeah, not much to worry about here. Just bask in the glow of the American-made radiation multi-petaflop calculations.

 

[Grimh]

That's cray-cray bro!

I like the idea that we're gonna use the, apparently at this point, ultimate example of raw computational power to handle the, at this point, ultimate example of raw destructive power.

It's almost like poetry or something.

Really incredibly crappy poetry.