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takyon writes:

China's first exascale supercomputer, estimated to cost $150-300 million, could be used for marine science research with an eye for turning China into a maritime superpower:

News out of China today indicates the nation could stand up a peak exaflop supercomputer even sooner [than 2020]. The South China Morning Post reported that China will build its first exascale machine in Shandong province as soon as 2019 to support ocean research in the South China Sea and boost China's maritime expansion.

[...] The project reflects the mission of Chinese Communist Party leader President Xi Jinping to turn China into a "hai shang qiang guo," or maritime superpower. "It will help, for instance, the simulation of the oceans on our planet with unprecedented resolution. The higher the resolution, the more reliable the forecast on important issues such as El Nino and climate change," Feng Liqiang, operational director of the Marine Science Data Centre in Qingdao, Shandong, told the South China Morning Post. "It will give China a bigger say in international affairs."

Not everyone agrees that the project will catapult China to maritime preeminence. Chinese ocean scientists pointed out that the US holds significant advantages in terms of having decades of historical data, sophisticated HPC software and algorithms, as well as a culture of open access to scientific data. "The State Ocean Administration runs and hoards its own data sets, as do the PLA Navy, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and many universities. Every institute is treating data as private asset for the interests of their own research," Lu Xianqing, professor at the Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography under the Ministry of Education in Qingdao, told the South China Morning Post.

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