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

[DigitalSushi]

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.

That's a lot of flops.

This arms race for flops is intriguing, although trying to imagine all those flops is rather difficult, a bit like trying to imaging the size of the Pillars of Creation.

 

[aPod]

If it's any consolation, the processors they are using are American/Israeli and the GPUs are Japanese. I don't think they have any tech of their own in that computer. Yet again, China leaches off of the rest of the world and decrees themselves to be the greatest.

I have to agree. For all the marvels China likes to brag about you will see close to no innovation in their buildings, their technology, anything. They just do it bigger. If they were to build a massive football stadium in Rio De Janiero, you'll most likely see a football stadium of similar design and about twice as big in China. Almost every major "innovation" in China over the past 20 can basically be summed up by the term "mine is bigger than yours".

Hell, even Chinese military equipment is of foreign origin. Their navy is a conglomeration of decommissioned ships from other first world nations and their equipment for infantry is either Chinese made AK47s or their completely shit Type 95s.

I wonder what they are compensating for? huh... huh?

Whatever.

It's interesting, i guess, i am not a scientist and i have no idea what these supercomputers are actually used to discover. I'd be more interested in what supercomputers have been used to discover in the past and what they will be able to tell us in the future. i could google... but that ruins the fun.

 

[Wicky_42]

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?

Shhhhhh! It might hear you! Let's just thank our lucky stars that they didn't call it skynet or anything ominous and foreboding.

Well they couldn't - us Brits have already made Skynet as our military comms system...

 

[captainwolfos]

They should stop making this "super-computer" shit, and try developing new kick-ass computers for the public quicker.

Even with all that said, 2.507 petaflops is...heh, pretty badass.

I agree with this guy. Even with the graphics set to an ugly minimum and using several bump mapping/optimisation mods I can barely get Oblivion to run on a brand new goddamned computer D:
Stop with the oneupmanship you guys; we want in, too.

 

[night_chrono]

I cant remember the specifics, I think the US gave the virus ot israel to plant, because the US has a treaty saying they wont use computer warfare in a first strike situation, but israel doesnt give a shit.

And I think the virus was something to do with monitoring the plants/computers so they could tell if sneaky stuff was happening...or some shit

Do you have a source on this?

Also it's hilarious to think that the US government probably spent billions of dollars to develop a fancy keylogger.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Wow, that's one fast computer, what would they actually use it for?

 

[lee1287]

Point of this? i could find 88 million better uses for using 88 million dollars.

 

[Goldeneye1989]

If it's any consolation, the processors they are using are American/Israeli and the GPUs are Japanese. I don't think they have any tech of their own in that computer. Yet again, China leaches off of the rest of the world and decrees themselves to be the greatest.

Im sorry what. they "leach" resources because they have the competitive edge in labor and manufacturing Thats like saying America is the fattest nation because they "leach" all the pizza from Italy.

 

[wammnebu]

Despite the fact that its a brand-new supercomputer, I relish the fact that the intel and nvidia chips used in its construction are still manufactured (or, at least developed, im not sure where nvidia plants are located) in the united states. Stringing more of them together than anyone else in the world does not really constitute a new advance, despite the power of the tool.

Supercomputers are a funny thing. You build them, they're the best in the world, and then somebody else gets a bunch of money together and builds theirs using the next generation chips. Theirs is then the fastest in the world, until the next guy comes along and builds another one with even newer chips. More important than anything is what science is being accomplished with these computers.

I agree, its almost like china just built its own rig, that is now better than the Alienware the us has had for two years. ----->in other news The Great State of North Korea has just developed the transistor

 

[wammnebu]

If it's any consolation, the processors they are using are American/Israeli and the GPUs are Japanese. I don't think they have any tech of their own in that computer. Yet again, China leaches off of the rest of the world and decrees themselves to be the greatest.

I have to agree. For all the marvels China likes to brag about you will see close to no innovation in their buildings, their technology, anything. They just do it bigger. If they were to build a massive football stadium in Rio De Janiero, you'll most likely see a football stadium of similar design and about twice as big in China. Almost every major "innovation" in China over the past 20 can basically be summed up by the term "mine is bigger than yours".

Hell, even Chinese military equipment is of foreign origin. Their navy is a conglomeration of decommissioned ships from other first world nations and their equipment for infantry is either Chinese made AK47s or their completely shit Type 95s.

I wonder what they are compensating for? huh... huh?

Whatever.

It's interesting, i guess, i am not a scientist and i have no idea what these supercomputers are actually used to discover. I'd be more interested in what supercomputers have been used to discover in the past and what they will be able to tell us in the future. i could google... but that ruins the fun.

Super computers are generally used for military calculations, most recently to simulate the effects and results of nuclear explosions. There is hopes that one day they will simulate a protein folding, but thats a little too complex right now :3

 

[lostzombies.com]

I cant remember the specifics, I think the US gave the virus ot israel to plant, because the US has a treaty saying they wont use computer warfare in a first strike situation, but israel doesnt give a shit.

And I think the virus was something to do with monitoring the plants/computers so they could tell if sneaky stuff was happening...or some shit

Do you have a source on this?

Also it's hilarious to think that the US government probably spent billions of dollars to develop a fancy keylogger.

I'll consult the oracle (google)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018

 

[Elementlmage]

If it's any consolation, the processors they are using are American/Israeli and the GPUs are Japanese. I don't think they have any tech of their own in that computer. Yet again, China leaches off of the rest of the world and decrees themselves to be the greatest.

Im sorry what. they "leach" resources because they have the competitive edge in labor and manufacturing Thats like saying America is the fattest nation because they "leach" all the pizza from Italy.

Yeaahhh.... I think that would be an accurate assumption.

The Chinese are not leaching resources... erh, most of them, and yes the US does its fair bit of leaching as well. But at least we don't assemble what is basically just a giant PC at heart and declare it to be the greatest technological triumph ever.

See, the Chinese leach tech. They have no respect for intellectual property what so ever. If you patent a new diesel engine that produces over 1000hp and still gets 30mpg, China will decide they quite like that and just get a copy of your design from the patent office and sail on back to China where their border protects them from lawsuits. They do it all the time.

Here, it's just a bit different. They actually had to buy the parts b/c they don't have the plants to produce electronics as complicated as Intel's and nVidia's, but I will bet you anything their supercomputer contains a MASSIVE amount of stolen code.

 

[Yureina]

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

I'm tempted, to be honest. I could see this thing breaking down in the non-so-distant future either through "Accident" or simply bad construction.

 

[Admiral Stukov]

I see this as conclusive evidence that I was right in running on Intel and Nvidia hardware.

Crysis joke incoming
T - 10 (posts)

...It already came in post 6.

Damn... premature detonation!

 

[goldenheart323]

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.

While I'd love for you to be right, I did some more research & these 2 sites disagree with you. They both say electronics would be fried.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse
http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb4.htm

Wikipedia even mentioned solid state electronics are even more susceptible to EMP damage than older vacuum tube based technology.

EMP's travel through the air. That means there would be a surge of current even inside the cpu & every chip in every device. Those tiny circuits can't take much. How would a breaker or surge suppressor protect the circuits inside of chips?

 

[Scrythe]

2.507 petaflops

Hang on a second, let me take a seat...

[HEADING=2]Holy fuck.[/HEADING]

 

[Talminator]

ah, but the question is, can it max out Crysis?

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