China Overtakes U.S. with World's Fastest Supercomputer

[Icarion (aka Stockholm)]

"The scientific research that is now possible with a system of this scale is almost without limits; we could not be more pleased with the results,"

They don't provide any examples? 88million isn't small change, lets hear it!!!

(oh wait, this is China...)

Are you kidding? My city just spent $42 mil on a school. for a government to pull $88 mil outta its ass isn't hard at all

 

[Icarion (aka Stockholm)]

6x7=42 theres your answer to life, the universe, and everything

But whats the question, huh? Can you calculate that?

 

[lizards]

i bet you could figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop with that thing

 

[Beastialman]

Oh man, imagine playing TF2 on that thing.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Just need to know: is it self aware?

 

[TheMann]

Why do I suspect that the China has only overtaken the fastest computer in the US or , that isn't classified? I think that been brought up, but I can't shake the feeling that there may be a group of computer scientists somewhere in the basement of the Pentagon that are laughing their asses of about this.

 

[Logic 0]

Why can't we just strap more PS3's to our super computers.

 

[Frostbite3789]

The bigger question is how will it handle 1.21 gigawatts?!

OT: Pretty sweet I suppose. They sure can do science-y things now.

 

[Kollega]

Oh wow that's a good idea. Let's give a nuclear power plant a virus.
Does the US government have any morals at all?

You know how in the movies a computer virus can make the machinery it has infected explode? Well, IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY in real life! And i've heard that virus was sent before the plant's activation (to delay it, apparently), though i may be wrong. So i do not see how the US government would have any less "morals" than the one this news article is about. Speaaaking of which...

An interesting bit of news. While I suppose it is mildly disturbing that we don't have the record at the moment, The US has been showing an odd lack of willpower when it comes to staying on top. Or at least staying on top in a fashion that the rest of the world can clearly see, like in terms of computer races.

That said, do a search for "China" "Satellite" and "Lasers" and you'll get some articles going back as far as like 2006 about Chinese Technology we haven't answered in any meaningful fashion. Look up the "Yuan Class Submarine", or for those who are concerned about domestic rights "Chinese Mobile Execution Chambers" or simply "Chinese Death Vans".

I've posted links to all of those things before. What's frightening is that our mainstream media seems to be entirely missing these things (from both parties), not to mention all of the saber rattling China has been doing about wanting to embrace it's destiny by taking over the world, or simply conquer other countries for living space.

Yeah, the very clear possibility of China with it's authoritarian government taking over the world kinda bothers me too, but apparently freaking out over this is way less important than lame jokes about Crysis. I don't want China as it currently is as a main superpower, for reasons that should be pretty transparent.

The problem i see is that most Western countries are more concerned with their local matters (pointless political campaigns, keeping up their improbably high living standards, battling Internet piracy on behalf of the media corporations, and such) than with keeping up their leadership. Maybe i'm oversimplifying or has got it wrong, but the gist of it seems correct.

 

[lostzombies.com]

because you don't shop for super clusters without someone noticing, the hardware don't grow on trees, you know?
as there are only 3 players in the hardware field (amd/ati, intel and nvidia) and all are public traded, it is quite hard to hide that you are shopping for something that big.

Like the way the B2 and F117 showed up on Boeing and General Electric's catalogue for 20 years?

The black world is so multilayered that western governments can get their hands on anything from a public company and it would never be released into the real world until they choose it to be.

I'm not arguing for the same of arguing. It's just common sense to realise that whatever China is developing now, the US has probably had for a considerable amount of time. Across all tech fronts.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

so there we have it. the ONE computer that can run Crysis on the highest graphics settings with absolutely NO lag XD (EDIT: DAMN! Someone ninja'd me... )

other than that, i always knew it was china who developed Skynet... their desire to be better than America overshadows reason itself

 

[Azaraxzealot]

"The scientific research that is now possible with a system of this scale is almost without limits; we could not be more pleased with the results,"

They don't provide any examples? 88million isn't small change, lets hear it!!!

(oh wait, this is China...)

such scientific research includes: Being able to download pirated movies in less than a second
and not having to wait for videos to buffer on IGN XD

 

[Nouw]

That's fucking fast! Come on Japan or Korea beat them!

 

[BrownGaijin]

Soooo... basically China wins cyber warfare now? Or does the US have more total processing power available split between its machines?

Screw it, who's up for a nice game of global thermonuclear war?

Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess Mr. Lightman?

OT: 2.75 peataflops. I wonder how long it would take it to count to a googol, or dare I say googolplex.

 

[goldenheart323]

The United States has long held the world's fastest computer within its borders but China just made a mega-computer that makes ours look like a pocket calculator.

Um, it's not even twice as powerful. How does it make ours look like a "pocket calculator"???
Massively exaggerate much?

Anyone want to start a pool on how long before an "accidental" EMP takes this thing out?

Never?

Emp doesn't work that way. Emp causes chaos by shutting down everything at the same time, which usually results in pretty complicated rebooting procedures. ...

An EMP doesn't just just shut electronics down. It destroys them. The magnetic pulse causes a huge amount of current to be generated in circuits which overloads them & burns them up. Rebooting won't fix a burned up chip.

It's possible to shield electronics from an EMP though. IIRC, during the Cold War, the US shielded all of its infrastructure against such an attack.

 

[Aidinthel]

It's possible to shield electronics from an EMP though. IIRC, during the Cold War, the US shielded all of its infrastructure against such an attack.

All the military infrastructure, at least. I doubt the civilian stuff has any shielding.

 

[superbatranger]

Who here thinks the Chinese will let me borrow it?

 

[Frankster]

Why do I suspect that the China has only overtaken the fastest computer in the US or , that isn't classified? I think that been brought up, but I can't shake the feeling that there may be a group of computer scientists somewhere in the basement of the Pentagon that are laughing their asses of about this.

So is that secret super computer where all your money went this past decade then?
It's true that the previous presidents were well known for their scientific leanings and interests in computer technology + there was no other military commitment that might have diverged fundings from any such costly enterprise.
....
Yeah, that's what I thought, if there is a super computer that's even better then one built over the last 2 years, then chances are it will be in the hands of one of those uber powerful corporations rather then the pentagon.

 

[Asehujiko]

An EMP doesn't just just shut electronics down. It destroys them. The magnetic pulse causes a huge amount of current to be generated in circuits which overloads them & burns them up. Rebooting won't fix a burned up chip.

It's possible to shield electronics from an EMP though. IIRC, during the Cold War, the US shielded all of its infrastructure against such an attack.

It destroys everything that isn't "hardened", which is stuff without surge breakers etc. Which basically comes down to pre-1980 computers built before the invention of the microchip.

 

[theSovietConnection]

So how many flops do I get out of my PS3?, its a "random number" megaflop or something right? and whats the difference between a mega and a peta?

I can't stop thinking of PETA right now.

Well, if I remember correctly, a megaflop is 1,000,000 flops, while a petaflop is around a thousand trillion flops.