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As predicted, Chinese supercomputer Tianhe-2 (also known as the Milky Way-2) has now been crowned the most powerful supercomputer in the world. Arriving years ahead of schedule, and packing 32,000 Xeon processors alongside 48,000 Xeon Phi accelerator processors, the supercomputer can manage a quadrillion mathematical calculations per second (33.85 petaflops), double that of last year's king (and closest rival), the Titan. In this year's results, 80 percent of the Top 500 used Intel processors, while 67 percent had processors with eight or more cores -- as clock speeds stall, supercomputer development has now focused on processors running in parallel. Top 500 editor Jack Dongarra adds that "most of the features of the [Tianhe-2] system were developed in China, and they are only using Intel for the main compute part," meaning that you can expect to see more Chinese entrants (and possibly champions) over the next few years. For now, however, the US still claims the majority of the Top 500, with 253 top-ranking supercomputers.
Via: CNET
Source: Top 500
Many suspect that China's Tianhe-2 could win the supercomputer speed wars, but there haven't been real numbers to back up that hunch. We now have some of those figures courtesy of Top 500's Jack Dongarra, and Tianhe-2 could well be the new leader -- by a gigantic margin. The cluster of Ivy Bridge and Xeon Phi chips has benchmarked at 30.65 petaflops when using 90 percent of its nodes, giving it a 74 percent edge (!) over the 17.6-petaflop Titan. There's no guarantee that Tianhe-2 will hold the crown when the official Top 500 rankings appear on June 17th, but we don't see any upstart rivals on the horizon. It could be lonely at the top... for a while.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: Netlib.org (PDF)
China's supercomputer development is as much driven by national reputation as by military prowess and science; the country chose to build the Sunway BlueLight MPP with domestic chips knowing that it wouldn't get the absolute performance crown. It won't be quite so modest the next time around. China's National University of Defense Technology wants the Tianhe-2 supercomputer due in 2015 to crack an extremely high 100 petaflops, or five times faster than the record-setting Titan over in the US and a whopping 40 times faster than the Tianhe-1A. Before we hand the crown over, though, Top 500 supercomputer chart keeper Jack Dongarra notes to ITworld that China might have to sprint if it wants the symbolic title: the EU, Japan and US are all striving for the same benchmark, and they're not backing off anytime soon. The nation's trump card may have to be long-term plans for an exaflop-strength supercomputer by 2018, at which point we suspect the bragging will simmer down. For awhile.
China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer could hit 100 petaflops in 2015, may have a race on its hands originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Nov 2012 03:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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