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AMD Software Hardware Linux

China Building Linux-Based 10 Teraflop Supercomputer 260

Posted by timothy from the does-linux-scale dept.
securitas writes "CNet Asia reports that China is building a 2000-processor supercomputer based on the AMD Opteron 64-bit CPU. The new supercomputer will run a Chinese-designed Linux operating system. Based on current standings, the resulting 10-teraflop machine will make it the third most powerful supercomputer in the world. The Red Grid project is being built by Dawning Information Industry and China's National Research Centre for Intelligent Computing Systems. The Red Grid/Dawning 4000A is expected to be complete by June 2004. But China has competition - weighing in at 40 teraflops, the Cray Red Storm AMD-based 10,000-Opteron supercomputer built for Sandia National Labs will become the supercomputer heavyweight next year. More at Infoworld , InternetNews and Yahoo."
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China Building Linux-Based 10 Teraflop Supercomputer More

China Building Linux-Based 10 Teraflop Supercomputer

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  • Itanium (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What, no Itaniums? :-P

    Now AMD, if you could only get your desktop solution out there for a nice price...

    • I don't think the 2500 Barton for $90 can be beat by anything Intel offers, especially with a little OC knowledge (I have two 2500 based systems overclocked to 2312mhz, which is faster than a 3000).

      But even w/o OC, you'd have to spend about $160 to get a comparable 2.4ghz from Intel.

      If you are spending more than $200, however, it is clearly a different story and Intel's 800fsb chips are the better deal.
    • Desktop solution? What's the problem?

  • Air con (Score:2, Interesting)

    by danormsby ( 529805 )
    The big story should be about the air conditioning system for this baby.

    • Re:Air con (Score:3, Informative)

      by dprice ( 74762 )

      The big story should be about the air conditioning system for this baby.

      The Earth Simulator [jamstec.go.jp] in Japan requires is own power plant in an attached building to power the computer and the air conditioning system.

    • Re:Air con (Score:2, Funny)

      by saden1 ( 581102 )
      I want to know when McBride is going to make a visit to China and is their any hope of them imprisoning his ass for trying to defraud the state?
  • Urge to run L0pht Crack... Rising....

  • AMD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by delphin42 ( 556929 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:22AM (#6544392) Homepage
    This should do a lot for AMD's credibility as a server processor manufacturer. According to the current top500 list [top500.org], you have to go to number 84 to find an AMD based supercomputer. If these articles are correct, you'll soon have 2 in the top 5. That's quite a change of events.

    • Umm correction to OP (Score:2, Informative)

      by Glonoinha ( 587375 )
      -The new supercomputer will run a Chinese-designed Linux operating system.

      No. The new supercomputer will run a Linus-designed Linux operating system that has been heavily modified to suit the tastes of the Chinese. Counter to popular belief, the Chinese did not design Linux.

      • Re:Umm correction to OP (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        No. The new supercomputer will run a Linus-designed Linux operating system that has been heavily modified to suit the tastes of the Chinese.

        You mean, it will hunt down all traces of free thought and dissent and ruthlessly stamp them out?

        Hmm... how do you say "Skynet" in Chinese?

      • Re:Umm correction to OP (Score:2, Informative)

        by rde ( 17364 )
        No. The supercomputer will run a GNU-designed, Linux-kernel-based operating system. Counter to popular belief, Linus did not design more than the kernel of the OS.

        Normally, I'm not a gnu-head, but if others are going to be pedantic, why shouldn't I?
        • I remember an interview that Linus believed that his view of the operating system _is_ the kernel because the kernel answers to no program and all programs answer to it. He also admitted that Microsoft would have a broader definition, because it suits their marketing needs.

      • Re:Umm correction to OP (Score:4, Funny)

        by praksys ( 246544 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:36AM (#6544471)
        No. The new supercomputer will run a Linus-designed Linux operating system...

        Damn straight. And remeber its "Linus/Linux" not just "Linux". Give credit where its due.

  • Have the opterons outsold the Intanics? (Score:3, Informative)

    by brejc8 ( 223089 ) * on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:25AM (#6544406) Homepage Journal
    The inq [theinquirer.net] have a story wondering if just the two mentioned super computers worth of opterons sold have allready outsold the itanics.

  • Can they pull it off? (Score:5, Funny)

    by coolgeek ( 140561 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:25AM (#6544411) Homepage
    Seems it's a lot more complicated to build a network of 2000 boxes than it is to make a web page without broken img links [dawningusa.com] (Link is from the c-net article)
    • Seems it's a lot more complicated to build a network of 2000 boxes than it is to make a web page without broken img links

      Most of us Slashdot readers have no idea what you're talking about. You see, the page renders beautifully in Internet Explorer...

      • The guy above figured it out...they've put \ in their image URIs. Whether this supports or contradicts my suggestion of incompetence is an exercise for the reader. Page still doesn't render in Safari. I suspect this is a problem for Konqueror too.

  • Conspiracy revealed! (Score:5, Funny)

    by archen ( 447353 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:26AM (#6544417)
    That's what the Three Gorges Dam was for all along. To cool this thing.

  • New slogan for AMD and linux... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Helping to opress 1/3rd of the earth population"

  • China Syndrome? (Score:3, Funny)

    by kannibal_klown ( 531544 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:32AM (#6544444)
    If China Syndrome is when the core of a nuclear plant gets so hot that it starts to melt through the earth's core, theoretically towards China...

    What is it called when hundreds of AMD CPU's get equally hot and start to melt through the earth's core, theoretically towards the US?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:32AM (#6544447)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • If India will be next? Newsflash: India have been building super computers for a long time now, mostly to avoid the US export limitations imposed due to their little "mine is bigger than yours" game with Pakistan (involving nuclear tests).
    • "Japan holds the top at the moment, and the US is home to the second most powerful"

      Japan has the world's most powerful computer, and they're using it to model climate change and to do scientific research into how the earth works.

      America has the world's second most powerful computer. They use it to help build things to make big explosions.
      • Yes, but just wait until Japan performs their secret TSUNAMI ATTAKU - all the computers are for the really cool power-up animation sequence before the butterfly flaps its wings.
    • what about the ones IBM has been working on [slashdot.org] for a year that will be 300 and 500 tereflops. faster than the top 300 supercomputers combined. I'd like to see them beat that with AMD's

  • Good... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by FosterSJC ( 466265 )
    Maybe then can start simulating nuclear test blasts instead of actually conducting them.

    • Re:Good? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Progman2000 ( 626305 ) *
      The US hasn't performed live nuclear tests in quite a while (20 years?). There are two reasons why sims aren't enough: 1) They are based on theories that don't always match reality and 2) they cannot simulate *everything*.

      Don't get me wrong, theories and simulations are great for preliminary work, but in the end you have to test it to be sure. On the wall over my monitor right now is a board from the Cray 1-S/1000, used at Kirtland AFB in 1980 for blast effects sims.

      Besides, the world could use a good 1
  • Embed some "extra" code to help them out...

  • Chineese? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 )
    The new supercomputer will run a Chinese-designed Linux operating system.

    I thought Torvalds comes from Finland?
    Or are some obscure RMS ancestors chineese? ;)
  • I can't imagine what their licensing fee will be, what's the licensing fee for an equivalent machine running openserver? There must be some out there since all these enterprise capabilities came straight from the heart of SCO.
  • "Red Grid", "Red Storm" whatever happened to "Green Destiny"?
  • Think how many beads we going to need for this...
  • I think I can get Cray to make one for me afterwards. I mean, after they make one, another can't cost that much.. right?

  • Also interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Waab ( 620192 ) * on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:46AM (#6544518) Homepage

    The University of Kentucky is still doing interesting things with Athlons & Linux. Just about two weeks ago, a group there built KASY0, which they expect to set a new price/performance record at better than 1GFLOPS/$100. More about KASY0 here [aggregate.org].

  • ....Today, the /. readers dismissed as ridiculous the topic of the Brussel's beast [slashdot.org]. One of the main point in the discussion was the statement by several of the regular posters that no one builds "super"computers anymore...back to you Dave.....

  • Link... overload! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ever notice [google.com] how Slashdot stories [slashdot.org] often [reference.com] have far [farside.com] too many links [htmlgoodies.com]? Since the front page [slashdot.org] doesn't get [gnu.org] the little [slashot.org]-style URL warnings, I'm always [always.com] afraid of being linked to a certain .cx site [goatse.cx] or a disturbing picture of a girl... spewing.... something... [tubgirl.com] This article [slashdot.org] was pretty good, though. it [slashdot.org] didn't link to easy-to-find pages like Google [google.com], Yahoo [yahoo.com], IBM [ibm.com], Microsoft [microsoft.com], etc.

    Oh well, Slashdot, you are my friend! [youaremyfriend.com]
  • I don't think that the US will be the world's most powerful nation in long term. China has much more resources and population and therefore the chance to overtake the US in the next 20 years. Let's list Chinas benefits over the US:
    1. Population: sheer mass counts. If US has 1 genius in 1 million people, than we have 400 geniuses in the US. But China would have 1.100 which is quite an advantage.
    2. Education system: The US has a better starting position, but China is rapidly gaining. Chinese have thrown away all

    • Re:I think that Communist China will overtake US. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well first of all, I am an American citizen.

      But why does anyone have to "win" as the most powerful nation? More importantly, why does it have to be the united states? Truthfully I'd be happy if the US finally slid into 2nd place. Part of the problem with the govenment today is that they're completely wrapped up in maintaining the power of the US. We've become something akin to a cop who maintains his rule with bullying. The govement should start worrying about the problems of its own people instead of
      • If you don't fuck with anyone, sooner or later someone will decide that you are weak and fuck with you. The Chinese are already trying to push the US, see how far they can go. Spy plane incident? Spies in Los Alamos? Dumping goods into our markets? We need to fuck with them a little more then we are, in my opinion. Why are they spending all that money are military hardware if they aren't planning on using it? We should officially declare Taiwan a legit country and tell the mainland Chinese to go fuck

        • If you don't fuck with anyone, sooner or later someone will decide that you are weak and fuck with you.

          I agree. This is how the world goes round.

          The Chinese are already trying to push the US, see how far they can go. Spy plane incident? Spies in Los Alamos? Dumping goods into our markets? We need to fuck with them a little more then we are, in my opinion.

          I'm not from China, but why do you assume only Americans (and the odd European here and there) are going to be reading Slashdot? Do you

    • Not really. Something like 13% of the land in China is actually arable, a much lower proportion than in the US. And arable land is the most important natural resource of all; you can't really become globe-dominating power without the ability to feed yourself. Hence the freakishly intensive nature of Chinese agrigculture. Most farmers still have to plant thousands upon thousands of rice seedlings by hand.

      Cite [zhb.gov.cn]:

      The total land area in China ranks the third in the world and the per capita land area is 0.777 h

    • Population: sheer mass counts. If US has 1 genius in 1 million people, than we have 400 geniuses in the US. But China would have 1.100 which is quite an advantage.

      Population is more of a disadvantage than an advantage at this point. And "genius" isn't just a matter of statistics, it requires an environment that fosters it. Renaissance Venice didn't have a very high population.

      Education system: The US has a better starting position, but China is rapidly gaining. Chinese have thrown away all Mao anti-illectual rubbish and know to value knowledge these days.

      Unfortunately they've replaced the Maoist garbage with extremist nationalist garbage that is just as dangerous. And the extreme poverty that so much of China lives in drags down the education system. There are computer science departments in some area colleges that don't have, well, any computers.

      Traditions: The confucian traditions imply total devotion to work and society. However, the US tradition imply total devotion to self interest and egoism. So, the Chinese society have much better chance to complete large scale and high effort projects.

      Confucianism isn't as strong as it once was, which is a good thing; it's a very nasty, hierarchical, heavily class-based system. Its adherence to family and social obligations also encourages nepotism and cronyism, which is one of the central reasons why so many third-world economies hit the ropes so easily.

      Take e.g. Iraq we have our boys just a few months there, but already the press is whining that some of them are dying. Even worse the US economic system is based on these "values", so we can't change them without having our society collapse.

      Well it sounds like you have a definite ideological bias there, but the diversity of viewpoints is an advantage, not a disadvantage (though the right inevitably tries to smear dissent as "unpatriotic", at least when they're in power).

      Resources: China has many natural resources. Even more there are much resources in the neighboring countries.

      China has a fair amount of resources due to it's sheer size, but they're missing some things (such as enough arable land).

      These are very weak, so China has just to blackmail or to conquer them to get the resources.

      Well I definitely disagree with this. China is actually surrounded by smaller, yet militarily stronger countries. India is weaker than China in terms of pure military power, but they do have nuclear weapons and would probably react to any incursion with them. Japan has a smaller military, but far more advanced, and would probably beat China even without US help. Taiwan also has a very small, but very high-tech military, and China's obsolete transports and air force would be cut down pretty quickly if they tried anything. Russia, even now, is no pushover, and has a stronger military and a larger nuclear arsenal if it came to that. The southeast side of the country is slightly less intimidating, but I don't even think the Chinese government will go near the psychopaths who run North Korea.

      Legal bonds: there is not much copyright and IP enforced in China. So free from all patent and IP bounds China's economics and science can develop much faster.

      Yes, but I don't think they have the economy to drive the science, even if they have the information. And to get the foreign investment they really crave they'll have to start cracking down on IP issues.

      Less restricted goverment: In China the goverment doesn't have to obey very much restrictions. So they don't have to spend so much money on their own people or to protect human rights.

      True, which results in such things as the Three Gorges Dam. But a tyrannical government has no stability, as history has shown again and again.
      • I would like to add that the US has the advantage in education. US universities are very selective in accepting foreign students. Students with perfect scores on standardized tests are a minimum requirement. These bright minds help with US research and not Chinese projects. In a way, one can say that US exploits China out of their brightest minds.

        BTW, I dont understand why having a conversation with a foreign student in english is difficult. They can score perfectly on standardized exams.
    • I agree that China will take over the #1 spot in the future (but not in 20 years--more like 50 years). However, the advantage is not as big as you think. Consider the points you mentioned:

      Population:

      A lot of people seem to forget the downside of large populations. Large populations have increased social problems (my theory is that population ahd social issues are correlated in a non-linear manner). Things like crime, unemployment, famine, disease, etc are much more problematic with a large populatio

    • Re:I think that Communist China will overtake US. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by axxackall ( 579006 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @12:55PM (#6545390) Homepage Journal
      Education system: The US has a better starting position, but China is rapidly gaining. Chinese have thrown away all Mao anti-illectual rubbish and know to value knowledge these days.

      I am working in several projects with Chinees programmers educated back in China. Also I am working with Indian, Russian, West-Europian and North American programmers. I would say that Chinees and Russian are the best. Well, Russians are smarter a bit and their eduction is often evn overkilling, but they are slow and they do not have any sense of a discipline (like artists, they write the code they haven't been asked and they forget to write the code they've been asked). Indian programmers are very fast and have extreme sense of discipline, but that hurts their creativity a lot, besides Indian education is not really good. North American programmers are slow, with no creativity and a very poor education (most of American programmers I know barely know elementary math calculus). Chinese and West-Europian programmers are fast, disciplined and well (optimally) educated.

      Having said that I should add that Russian education is going down in its quality very rapidly. Europian ediaction keeps the same. North American education has no hope in any near time. Chinese and Indian education is growing. Thus, counting other logic (especially IP and patents) I think that China has a lot of future. All they need is to maintain a political stability by slowly giving up to their people more and more freedom, but doing it very slow (Soviet Union is collapsed b/c people receive too much of freedom rapidly at on time - too fast to egt using it properly).

    • So, totalitarian governments that don't acknowledge, let alone respect, the rights of their people are a GOOD thing? You must love Macchiavelli. I think the Chinese government is going to implode in the coming decades. And I'm going to enjoy watching their government leaders get hanged on CNN. Yeah, they are a large country. They are also a country with an evil government. Hopefully that government will fall soon.
    • They have a lot of catching up to do. Why do they keep spending money on Russian hardware? They can't make their own. Yeah, they have a lot of guns. They don't seem to have a hell of a lot of creativity, though, and that won't change until their government does. I hope the CDC and Hacktivismo keep giving them holy hell... even the Chinese have a limit to how many fingers they can stick in the dam.
    • "3 Traditions: The confucian traditions imply total devotion to work and society. However, the US tradition imply total devotion to self interest and egoism. So, the Chinese society have much better chance to complete large scale and high effort projects. The US have problems there. Take e.g. Iraq we have our boys just a few months there, but already the press is whining that some of them are dying. Even worse the US economic system is based on these "values", so we can't change them without having our soci
  • I am wondering, is this a Linux distribution or is it a breakaway project? Some time ago there were similar stories about an Asian Linux. There have been grumblings from RedHat that the Chinese were not contributing towards the "Linus" Linux. Is Asia going a seperate way with OSS and if so can someone explain why this is happening? Thanks, Gerard
  • 40 teraflops Cray Red Storm AMD-based 10,000-Opteron supercomputer built for Sandia National Labs

    Just imaging how fast it could run Notepad, Solitare, or Minesweeper!

    -

  • Yes, it runs linux, but why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:59AM (#6544580) Journal

    None of the links I bothered to click on even touched - as far as my skimming of the articles revealed - anything about why the chinese has opted for a variation on Linux, instead of one of the commercial unixes, Wondows (yeah, right) or something along those lines. Does it adapt better to this scale? Is it because it's essentially free (as in 'no licenses')? If it the reds fear of a backdoor in the system if they buy a commercial product?

    Don't get me wrong, a supercomputer running on Linux is cool and all that, but I would like to know more about the logic that dictates the choice of OS in such an application. Suggestions?

    • Hmm... Paying for 2000 MS licenses or a free OS.

      • Rubbish. I work in the field and 2000 Windows licences is only likely to cost about $20,000. Big deal on a $90 million contract. The cost is in the system admin - 2000 nodes need some fairly advanced remote management or a huge team (no you can't have 100 sys admins).

    • Pretty much all of the above, I think. Remember the Chinese gov't has its own official distro -- Red Flag Linux -- and presumably that's what this monster will be running. Linux scales well, they can tweak it to do what they want, and they know the code's secure because they can look at all of it; what's not to like? And they don't have to worry about licensing fees, of course.*

      *It's easy to be cynical about the degree to which US IP laws apply (or don't) in other countries, particularly in Communist o

    • You obviouly have not seen the scientific and learning tools available throught Linux. If the Chinese had to license all that software through MS based companies or even try to dev their own with MS tools it would bankrupt them!
    • In true communist fashion it's going to be used to run the biggest LTSP installation ever and all citizens will have their own terminals. This should make it easier to monitor what people are viewing.

  • Export? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 1stflight ( 48795 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @11:02AM (#6544592)
    I thought we weren't supposed to export supercomputing technologies to China? When did that change?

    • Re:Export? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by vidarh ( 309115 )
      You're not. However these days anyone with a technical inclinations, lots of ordinary PC's, and free software can put a super computer together themselves. So in other words, trying to limit it have become meaningless.
  • I wish people would stop pretending that an operating system adds to a computer's performance.

    An operating system is overhead, and can only slow down your peak computing speed.
  • Imagine how fast they can crank out pirate copies of XP with that sumbitch...

  • Im confused (Score:3, Funny)

    by huhmz ( 216967 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @11:09AM (#6544624)
    Does this make Linus a communist or a terrorist?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Call RMS! (Score:2, Funny)

    by MediaBoy77 ( 469933 )
    What are the odds China will release its modified GPL code to the rest of the world?

    There's a lawsuit I'd love to see. Linus Torvalds/FSF vs. The People's Republic of China.
  • Could you imagine a beouwolf..... Ahh fuck it..

  • So, new machines are built to aid in the development of faster, stronger, bigger and prettier nuclear weapons than we ever had before.

    However, soon there will be noone left to bomb. Then, what are the machines good for?

    The answer, of course, is seti@home! We need to start donating cycles from these computing monsters as soon as possible, to ensure that we find extraterrestrial life quickly, so that we do not run out of targets for the bombs.

    May I propose, that all sub-number-1 machines on the top500 are
  • ...but how much is that in comrades with adding machines?

  • what will the interconnect be? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by soldack ( 48581 ) <[moc.oohay] [ta] [rekcadlos]> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @01:52PM (#6545701) Homepage
    I wonder what the interconnect between the nodes will be. Gigabit ethernet seems far too slow. There is Myrinet, Dolphin, and other HPC interconnects. 10Gb ethernet is still really expensive and there is only one NIC on the market (from Intel). InfiniBand would make a lot of sense...10 Gb, much cheaper than 10Gb Ethernet, much lower latency, and already supports MPI and TCP/IP offloaded sockets.
    Of course maybe for systems this large, a special machine specific interconnect makes sense.

  • (my 2 cents worth)- I think Linux deployment is at a critical stage right now, legal challenges by SCO casting FUD around, stuff like this just gives the anti-linux entities more ammo

    Considering the past statements made by MS execs re: linux ("communist"?) - e.g. "Look, the Chinese government is happy to use linux to power their weapons. American coders - mind you, american coders who are NOT working on Microsoft platforms - are happily contributing code day and night (when not wasting their time on /.)

  • Has anyone done the Beowolf gag yet?

    Stephen

  • would sure make for a happy Chinese counterstrike clan.

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