China claims supercomputer crown

Discussion in 'Computer Science & Culture' started by Michael, Oct 29, 2010.

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  1. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    China claims supercomputer crown

    China has claimed the top spot on the list of the world's supercomputers.

    The title has gone to China's Tianhe-1A supercomputer that is capable of carrying out more than 2.5 thousand trillion calculations a second."I would say it's 47% faster than the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's machine, 1.7 Pflops (ORNL system) to 2.5 Pflops (Chinese system)."


    Maybe the Chinese can make a faster supercomputer for us one day

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  3. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    This was bound to happen, after all a number of western culture look to the Chinese and other countries for manufacturing most of their components and even full electronic systems. This has allowed the Chinese full access to understanding those technologies and enhance their own, to be honest that can be a good thing if there country has of course matured enough to not attempt to use their new found knowledge and stature to terrorise the rest of the free world.

    If they can provide advances for themselves *AND* the rest of the world no one should stand in their way. (Obviously there is always the concern that they might regress to the level of North Korea, but it's really up to them to decide if they want to become so xenophobic and warmongering.)


    [edit]
    This is slightly off-topic but it might explain why China has been seen negatively in the past for some of their Human rights issues, safety issues, environmental issues or Über policestate references.

    Population of countries:
    • China: 1,324,655,000
    • US : 307,006,550
    • UK : 61,414,062
    • Australia: 21,431,800

    If it was posed that 10% of society was "Criminal" (This doesn't mean incarceration, but potentially undetected crimes or ones not acted upon) China's 10% would equal 132,465,500 people. Thats equivalent (not in criminality) to 1/3rd of the US population. The numbers themselves (4.3 to 1 ratio for the US) are probably the main reason why there was so much Anti-Communist/Anti-China semantics in the past. (Could be worse, the UK's a 21.5 to 1 ratio)

    (In honesty China doesn't need a super weapon or a huge well drilled army, their shear numbers would probably bankrupt any country attempting to fire enough rounds at them to suppress them)

    Incidentally what is also interesting is identifying the "Percentage of Government Jobs per population", I've only found the US's value of "11,810,490" thats like roughly 0.3% of the US population running the Country, let's just hope that's not a 0.3% out of the criminal 10%.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2010
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  5. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Yesterday it was America, today China and perhaps tomorrow Japan. The world changes daily and advances do as well. To think only one country has the ability to achieve monumental things is absurd. Congratulations to China for the time being in making this advancement.
     
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  7. John99 Banned Banned

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    wowhow how how....yippy.
     
  8. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    nice to see you michael making a thread aboutsomething elserather than being stuck on the same threads

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  9. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Except this computer is made out of American-designed and -manufactured parts (Intel and NVidia - well, the NVidia components are mostly manufactured in Taiwan). China's contribution consisted of a pile of money to purchase stuff from those companies, along with the development of an inter connect bus (admittedly, an important supercomputer component, but hardly the most difficult or important element). The commissioning of this one machine corresponds to billions in export sales for American companies.

    Meanwhile, this is nothing new. Japan made a similar jump to the top of the list back in 2002, only to see their position steadily eroded by a profusion of ever-faster American supercomputers. Along those lines, the US is already constructing multiple supercomputers that will trounce the performance of Tianhe, and has plans for ever-faster ones beyond that. The thing about these supercomputer lists is that getting a single machine into the top ranks isn't that impressive - it's the ability to be consistently and steadily field ever-higher-performance machines, year after year, that distinguishes a country. Paying to field a top machine made out of imported parts is a cheap way for a country to create the impression amongst laymen (who have no idea how such things are actually put together) that your country has an impressive computer technology industry. Meanwhile, who has ever purchased a Chinese-designed PC processor? Nobody. There is no such thing.

    And, moreover, which country hosts which computer isn't that interesting - it only tells you that they had a pile of money to spend. The interesting question is which country is actually producing the innovations that enable ever-faster supercomputers, and that country remains the United States. The Chinese microprocessor industry is in its infancy, literally several decades behind the American one. In a year or two, Tianhe will have slipped out of the top 10 in the top500 list, while America will still dominate the top spots.
     
  10. birch Valued Senior Member

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    5,077
    no worries, america will always be number one and lead in innovation too.
     
  11. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    why, 'claim', you can't beleive it? now you have too, and by 2012, they expect that they can reach 10 Pflops
     
  12. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Of course for now the USA holds a huge technological lead, however, I wonder if that is going to be the case, say in 15 years? China is pumping huge amounts of money to train new graduates - while at the same time the USA is cutting way back on higher education.

    It seems like our best and brightest, sadly, want to go into Medicine, Banking or Law. Mainly just to make money. Leaving the left overs to do Science and Research.


    Anyway, yes I agree anyone with deep pockets can buy a fast computer, super or otherwise, but I can't but help have this feeling that our best days are behind us.
     
  13. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    the future is asian, besides the new emergin countries, china is between those, well, look, china is emergin, yet it's huge, you can go at any country in the world and you find made in china, and besides the new rising tech hubes in the world, and industrual hubes too, well, the world is changing, and u.s.a. wan't be the leading country.
     
  14. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

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    Oh really? You want a communist dictator wack job whom feeds money to terrorists and has conducted extremely questionable acts in his leadership to lead the world?

    China is great and all, but it's government in wrong in the head.

    Besides the fact that China is eventually going to pop.

    The US isn't perfect, but it is a lot better than the Chinese government.
     
  15. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

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    So what? IBM will have 20 petaflops by 2011 and 1 exaflop by the end of the decade.

    IBM made the world record for overclocking with a cpu clocked to 500 gigahertz. To put that in perspective the enthusiast world record is around 7 ghz. The average clock speed for a desktop is around 2.66 ghz to 3.4 ghz. Most laptops are closer to 1.66 ghz.

    And IBM is researching a 1 Thz processor made from graphene.
     
  16. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    .

    uuuh, i didnt think about it like that.
    but, beleive me, they are all the sale, all, obama, or china dictator, or anyone else, on the world scale, but on the country scale, that's another story, they're not the same, some are dictators (bad), and some are democratic (good), and some are between

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    still on the way to the complete democracy.
    waow, imagine how would china become if it was all democratic.
    ((just a side note: oh, ever heard of enlightening dectatorship? it appeared in begening of illumunation in europe, some leaders are being dictators of the enlightened thought))
     
  17. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    .

    ah, cool
     
  18. birch Valued Senior Member

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    5,077
    but america is special and they will always be number one and be best at everything. being number one is most important anyways.
     
  19. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Dictatorships aren't good or bad. It's just a form of government, pretty much like a King or Queen. If the Dictator is good, it might even be better than Democracy. It seems to me our republic has gone off the deep end, have you seen some of the dopy candidates for Senate!?!?
     
  20. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Yes.

    In the first place, there is a lot more to creating and sustaining a culture of leadership in technological innovation than pumping out graduates. There's a reason that all of their best and brightest have been immigrating here and working Silicon Valley for generations now. In the second place, the US isn't "cutting way back on higher education." In the third place, China is decades behind the US in education - not a single research university in the top ranks. Higher education in China is decades away from being worth mentioning in the same sentence as the USA, even if they were outspending us (which they aren't).

    Anyway, everyone said all of these exact same things about Japan a few decades back, when Japan was pursuing the exact same export/investment-driven mercantilist growth strategy as China has been. And how'd that end up for them? Yeah. Any reason to think that China won't end up in the same boat (or, actually, a worse one, given the larger scale and less transparent political system)?

    Speaking of which, the rush to compare China to the USA is extremely premature in most aspects: they'll still need to catch up with Japan, Europe and India in the technology sectors before they'll be a credible threat to the USA. Call me when an American supercomputer is made out of processors designed in China.
     
  21. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, they are.

    Monarchy is a classic example of a "bad" form of government.

    No such thing, especially not in the long run.

    I'll take them over being cracked over the head with a truncheon and whisked off to "labor-reeducation camp" any day of the week.
     
  22. birch Valued Senior Member

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    5,077
    why is everything construed as a threat? why is it considered bad if a country that may not be america does well or may come up with technology or improves it since it will benefit the world anyways. there is something prejudiced about an us vs them attitude or view which fuels or elicits the same type of attitude in others. people at the very top usually don't think that way because they have an overall higher vision and understanding of how the world works together.

    btw, you are very wrong about the best and brightest coming to america. those who have the money can come easily as well as some bright students but you spout the same ignorant but typical arrogant bs that most americans think. it's just not true that only the best come to america and the rest in other countries are idiots and losers. the fact you think that makes you an idiot yourself.

    also, which i think is funny, i would agree that it's premature to compare china to america but i hope that they are wise enough to know that they shouldn't be just like america(as not all of it is good or wise to emulate) or anyone else but be themselves.

    you are also incorrect about the graduates because as they turn out more graduates in science, technology, and engineering; they will have more r&d. it takes money as well as the educated to reach a certain level to make innovations at a higher level and they are getting there. china knows the critique of lack of innovation and they know their weak points, currently.

    as for america, the primary school system is not very good and most are not interested in the hard sciences either even if the university education system is top notch. that will also make a difference down the line.

    it sure looks like, if the trend continues, that china could pull into the lead in many areas in the next few decades. if that is the case, it doesn't mean china is wrong to do well for itself or eclipse america in anyway. and after china, it will be someone else. america does not have some innate and fixed state of being or entitlement or prestige bestowed by nature. besides, it's quite a burden to always try and be number one. there is no shame in not always being number one as that's not what life is really about anyways.

    china is also not really expansionist or interested in being a world power that america is in the same way. i hope for a multi-polar world of various powers. i don't like the idea of america or china or anyone just having the most power etc when it's not necessary. also, as each country becomes better and self-sufficient, there will b e less immigration to america which will make the natives much more alleviated and americans not feel as burdened even if on the flipside, they may not be able to brag that america is the best and only country suitable for living. that's the best outcome as every country does well for itself.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2010
  23. kriminal99 Registered Senior Member

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    292
    Not to mention that half the universities in America train chinese people who then go back to china...

    Most of the faculty are now foreign and American students are mistreated in their own academic network.
     
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