The Platform reports that CPU export restrictions to Chinese supercomputing centers may have backfired. Tianhe-2 has remained the world's top supercomputer for the last five iterations of the TOP500 list using a heterogeneous architecture that mixes Intel's Xeon and Xeon Phi chips. Tianhe-2 will likely be upgraded to Tianhe-2A within the next year (rather than by the end of 2015 as originally planned), nearly doubling its peak performance from 54.9 petaflops to around 100 petaflops, while barely raising peak power usage. However, instead of using a new Intel Xeon Phi chip, a homegrown "China Accelerator" and novel architecture will be used.
A few details about the accelerator are known:
Unlike other [digital signal processor (DSP)] efforts that were aimed at snapping into supercomputing systems, this one is not a 32-bit part, but is capable of supporting 64-bit and further, it can also support both single (as others do) and double-precision. As seen below, the performance for both single and double precision is worth remarking upon (around 2.4 single, 4.8 double teraflops for one card) in a rather tiny power envelope. It will support high bandwidth memory as well as PCIe 3.0. In other words, it gives GPUs and Xeon Phi a run for the money—but the big question has far less to do with hardware capability and more to do with how the team at NUDT will be able to build out the required software stack to support applications that can gobble millions of cores on what is already by far the most core-dense machine on the planet.
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According to VR World and HPCwire, the U.S. government has blacklisted "high technology" shipments to the National Supercomputing Center Changsha (NSCC-CS), National Supercomputing Center Guangzhou (NSCC-GZ), National Supercomputing Center Tianjin (NSCC-TJ), and the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) in China. This effectively means that these major supercomputing facilities can no longer purchase Intel Xeon chips. Tianhe-2, the world's fastest supercomputer since June 2013 according to Top500, is located at the NUDT in Guangzhou and uses a total of 32,000 Intel Xeon and 48,000 Xeon Phi chips.
The main claim of the Bureau of Industry and Security's End-User Review Committee (ERC) is that NUDT, which used US-manufactured parts to produce the Tianhe-1A and Tianhe-2 supercomputers located at the National Supercomputing Centers in Changsha, Guangzhou, and Tianjin, is believed to be engaged in activities related to nuclear explosives.
The U.S. also uses supercomputers for nuclear weapons research.
The news coincides with the Intel Developer Forum 2015 in Shenzhen, China, at which the company announced new Braswell, SoFIA, and Cherry Trail chips, among other products. VR World speculates that the move could cost Intel $1 billion on lost Broadwell-EP Xeon E5v4 sales and accelerate the development of homegrown Chinese processors.
The TOP500 List of the world's fastest supercomputers for June 2015 has been released. China's Tianhe-2 remains the leader with 33.86 petaflops on the LINPACK benchmark. It has topped the list since June 2013. The only new supercomputer in the top 10 is the Shaheen II in Saudi Arabia, a 5.536 PFlop/s Cray XC40 system using 196,608 Intel Xeon E5-2698v3 cores.
The Platform has an analysis of the results. Although performance growth is slowing, pre-exascale supercomputers (100+ petaflops) can be expected within the next two to three years. The U.S. Department of Energy's Aurora supercomputer will deliver 180 petaflops of performance in 2018. Around the same time, the Summit supercomputer is expected to reach 150-300 petaflops while Sierra will reach 100+ petaflops. ~1 exaflop supercomputers are expected to appear around 2018-2022.
The June 2015 Green500 list ranking supercomputers by megaflops per watt will be available sometime later in the month. Here is the November 2014 Green500 list. The Piz Daint supercomputer appears within the top 10 on both lists.
In the name of national security, China is restricting export of certain drones and computers:
From August 15, manufacturers of certain powerful drones and computers will have to give technical details to the authorities to obtain a licence prior to export, Xinhua news agency says.
[...] In the first five months of 2015, China exported some 160,000 civilian drones, a jump of 70 per cent year-on-year, worth more than $120 million, the official China Daily newspaper reported in July.
[...] The tightening of regulations comes two weeks after an incident in disputed Kashmir in which the Pakistani army claimed to have shot down an Indian "spy drone", reportedly Chinese-made.
China is also likely tightening controls on exports of powerful computers as it looks to maintain its edge in the global supercomputer battle long dominated by US-Japanese rivalry.
Starting August 15th, drone and supercomputer manufacturers will have to present technical details to the authorities in order to get a license to export.
takyon: Intel Launches New Chips in China as US Bans Sales to Supercomputing Centers
U.S. Export Restrictions Lead to Chinese Homegrown Supercomputing Chips
New information has emerged about China's exascale plans, which are a part of China's 13th five-year plan for 2016-2020. Despite U.S.-imposed export restrictions on processors, two 100 petaflops systems will be launched sometime during 2016, possibly as soon as the 2016 International Supercomputing Conference in June. One of these systems will be an upgrade to Tianhe-2, and both may utilize homegrown accelerators.
At least one exascale prototype system will be built prior to a 1 exaflops system:
The exascale prototype will be about 512 nodes, offering 5-10 teraflops-per-node, 10-20 Gflops/watt, point to point bandwidth greater than 200 Gbps. MPI latency should be less than 1.5 µs, said [Beihang University Professor Depei] Qian. Development will also include system software and three typical applications that will be used to verify effectiveness. From there, work will begin on an efficient computing node and a scheme for high-performance processor/accelerator design.
"Based on those key technology developments, we will finally build the exascale system," said Qian. "Our goal is not so ambitious – it is to have exaflops in peak. We are looking for a LINPACK efficiency of greater than 60 percent. Memory is rather limited, about 10 petabytes, with exabyte levels of storage. We don't think we can reach the 20 megawatts system goal in less than five years so our goal is about 35 megawatts for the system; that means 30 Gflops/watt energy efficiency. The expected interconnect performance is greater than 500 Gbps."
Zhaoxin Displays x86-Compatible KaiXian KX-6000: 8 Cores, 3 GHz, 16 nm FinFET
Zhaoxin, a joint venture between Via Technologies and the Chinese government, this week for the first time displayed its upcoming x86-compatible CPU, the KaiXian KX-6000. The SoC features eight cores running at 3 GHz and increases performance over its predecessor by at least 50%.
The KaiXian KX-6000 is a successor to the KX-5000 CPU launched earlier this year. Both chips integrate eight-core x86-64 cores with 8 MB of L2 cache, a DirectX 11.1-capable iGPU with an up-to-date display controller, a dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory controller, contemporary I/O interfaces (PCIe, SATA, USB, etc), and so on. The key differences between the KaiXian KX-5000 and the KaiXian KX-6000 are frequencies and manufacturing technology: the former is produced using TSMC's 28 nm fabrication process and runs at up to 2 GHz, whereas the latter is made using TSMC's 16 nm technology and operates at up to 3 GHz. Zhaoxin claims that the Kaixian KX-6000 offers compute performance comparable to that of Intel's 7th Generation Core i5 processor, which is a quad-core non-Hyper-Threaded CPU. Obviously, performance claims like that have to be verified, yet a 50% performance bump over the direct predecessor already seems beefy enough.
Related: Russia Plans to Dump Some American CPUs for Homegrown Technology
Russian Homegrown Elbrus-4C CPU Released
U.S. Export Restrictions Lead to Chinese Homegrown Supercomputing Chips
Linux-Based, MIPS-Powered Russian All-in-One PC Launched
China Dominates TOP500 List, Leads With New 93 Petaflops Supercomputer
Chinese Company Produces Chips Closely Based on AMD's Zen Microarchitecture
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @06:31PM
Me rikey flied lice!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday July 16 2015, @06:33PM
I dont know what was export controlled but I do know the Soviets reverse engineered many of our chips. But when our process shrunk below the size that they coudl reverse engineer they had to develop their own designs.
A UC Davis grad student told me this in 1981. I dont really know but speculate this contributed to the fall of Communism, perhaps by facilitating a free market.
Also DIGITAL designed something like "Stolen from the very best" into the traces of at least one of its boards, I expect because of the message of peace that was posted to usenet from kremvax.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @06:36PM
Eat my flied lice you honky bitch!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @06:39PM
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @06:40PM
And makes sure to add lead in the paint and poison in the baby formula. LOL.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @06:50PM
I reverse engineered my dick up your slut mom's dried up fuck hole. Then she begged me to jizz all over her pancake tits.
(Score: 0, Troll) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday July 16 2015, @07:24PM
Mom hasn't dated any other men since Dad passed away 2003. She still wears her wedding ring.
Care to elucidate?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @07:35PM
Way to feed the troll.
(Score: 2, Troll) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday July 16 2015, @07:37PM
I never downmod anybody because I agree withthe ACLU that the best response to hate speech is more speech.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @07:54PM
Just like I fed his mom trouser snake.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @07:52PM
Fucking != dating. I'd never be seen in public dating that hag bitch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @11:49PM
Your dad died. Ha ha!
- Nelson
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ThePhilips on Saturday July 18 2015, @10:59AM
I dont know what was export controlled but I do know the Soviets reverse engineered many of our chips. But when our process shrunk below the size that they coudl reverse engineer they had to develop their own designs.
A UC Davis grad student told me this in 1981.
That's just silly fairy tail. Most notably because at the time many computers actually came with the detailed schematics, so that you can diagnose and repair it yourself. One didn't need to RE a lot: one could just buy one with the full documentation. (Likewise, later, the schematics for the Intel's 8080 and 8086 were easily available, and it was easy to build on your own using normal microchips. One didn't need to RE anything.)
But Soviets did indeed reverse engineer lots of the chips. From my profs I also know that REing of the USA computers was largely done by and for the military and the intelligence. Only few of those REed designs actually went to the people who build the computers and software at the time.
And before the advent of microcomputers, they had their own full sized computers which were competitive. (Though at the time they also did RE IBM VMS.) Hey, I come from the ex-USSR and I have seen the dinosaurs.
The problem with the Soviet computer development wasn't that they lacked something technologically. The problem was the Soviet regime itself, with its stagnating planned economy. They have under-appreciated the impact of computers, and thus failed to create the market for them. The rest were just pure economics: lower production volumes, less specialists, leading to high prices on both hardware and software. Before 80s, computers were few and almost exclusively in the scientific and the military sectors - the business was still largely using pen and paper. While in the USA, the adoption of computers by the businesses played crucial role in making the computers eventually mainstream and affordable.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 16 2015, @06:50PM
It'll run on Linux,which as a server OS is quite well suited to managing a ton of chips across a large group of nodes. this is why groups like CERN use it with their HPCs, it is a task that particular OS can do well.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 17 2015, @12:52AM
My wish is that it will ONLY run linux, and they make it so cheap that PC/laptop/server manufacturers buy them and switch everyone over to linux.
Now we only need to get more people making that KILLER linux and app.....
...sigh. Too many people making YET ANOTHER LINUX. Really was hoping Shuttleworth was going to do it. (Although he is making, i guess, a killer linux for the masses but messing it up a bit.) :/
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday July 17 2015, @09:00AM
The problem with that idea is this....Linux sucks as a desktop. I'm sorry but it really blows in that role and the reason is simple, its just not built for that role. If you look at the amount of money spent on Linux development and where it goes? Desktop is a joke, its not even enough to be considered a pittance, if it were even 4% I'd be amazed its THAT low of a priority.
So where is the other 96% being spent? Its being spent where Linux MAKES MONEY, and that is in the server and embedded roles. This is something too many FOSS fans fail to grasp, just because its free? Does NOT mean its a charity, or its being made out of some sense of altruism. Nope sorry friend its being made by megacorps like Red Hat and HP and its being made for a specific purpose and desktop? Just ain't it.
At the end of the day I can take a copy of XP RTM, install it, and then update it aaaaalllll the way to EOL, that is THREE service packs and thousands of patches and...all the drivers that worked at the start will be working at the end with zero need of "open up bash and type" or "google for fixes" and that is what you have to compete against and Linux just can't, it hasn't had the hundreds of millions spent on it in that arena to make it competitive. It HAS had that money spent in the server and embedded space and wadda ya know, works great in those roles.
So I'm sorry but TANSTAAFL and even if Shuttleworth threw his entire fortune at Linux it still wouldn't even be a fifth of what would need to be spent to give it the ease of use of Windows and OSX, the majority of its design is based around CLI (which just won't fly in consumer space in 2015) and too many of the fundamental design choices has been made with server and embedded in mind. It would be like saying "Well I like bicycles so all that should be on the road should be bicycles" while ignoring there are plenty, in fact the majority, of use cases where a bike is simply not a good choice for the task at hand. If you want to build a web server or embedded system? Use Linux, want a good desktop with tons of hardware support and 10 years of updates hassle and breakage free? Linux just isn';t the correct choice.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 17 2015, @10:58AM
Hurts to say, but yes... i use linux at home and looove it, but can't really recommend it to others unless they have the interest in experimenting with it simply because i don't have the time to drop everything and help them if they get confused about something (but it is the same with windows too, though.... i can't recommend it either).
I haven't used apple products much, but it seems like the user experience is better/easier there.
I'm still trying to find the 'perfect linux', lol.
If the Bill and Melina Gates foundation was TRULY interested in the betterment of society, they would invest in open source, but it is really a business partner with MS, and a joke tax loophole.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @12:50PM
Joke tax? Does it depend on how funny the joke is?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Saturday July 18 2015, @06:31AM
Actually, not to toot my own horn TOO much, I've found its really not hard to make a "perfect" Windows box that even if the user is an ID10T you really don't have a thing to fear, in fact its just about my most popular service and I get a ton of referrals just to perform this service.
So how do I do it? Well it involves a little prepwork, specifically knowing their Gmail (or setting them up one if they don't have one) along with a PaleMoon account. What these are for will be obvious in a few. You install Windows, making sure you have it set up with a separate drive which houses their documents/pics/music etc. You set up their browsers (in this case I use Comodo Dragon and PaleMoon) and have both set up to autosync their settings. if they have any "must have" programs? Install them NOW. Once I have everything set up so that everybody is happy? I set up a hidden backup capsule using Paragon Backup & Recovery Free, lock the disc image I make at this time along with setting up a backup schedule.
So what does this do? It means no matter what happens short of hardware failure you can put it back to the original config with NO worries about lost docs, pics, or bookmarks AND you can send it back (depending on the drive size) up to 3 months with again NO risk of anything they care about being lost! Now when you combine this with my usual Comodo AV and Comodo DNS to keep out the nasties? Well again not to brag but I have systems out there going back 7 years that are purring just as nice as the day they left the shop.
As I've said a million times "Linux is free if your time is worthless" and that isn't a slight. If you have the time to mess with it? Its just like rebuilding an old car, you can make it anything you want. But most of us do NOT have the time nor desire to make the time investment to learn and administer an OS, not when we can get something like Windows and just not have to fool with the thing. COULD I have a perfectly running Linux system? Sure but when I get off after a hard days work I want to watch TV, play my games, do what I want to do WITHOUT having to do anything more than flip the switch. With Windows I get that, with Linux I do not, simple as that.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 18 2015, @10:21PM
The same is true for me, but i do it with linux: I don't watch tv much at all, i watch the stuff on my harddrives. The games i play work on linux, especially now with steam. I have had to mess with windows far too much: my wife has the same laptop i do, with windows. She is not a techie. Her laptop is now almost useless because she doesn't know not to click on certain things, so she gets the viruses, etc.
She says 'Linux is useless because you can't do anything on it', and yet she now has to use my laptop to do her online activities.
I feel at home and do anything I want on my computer.
To each his own.... my linux on the desktop year was 1999, the year before my son was born. Never looked back.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday July 18 2015, @10:55PM
And that is fine...until you have to do the upgrade deathmarch due to the insanely low support cycle of your average Linux. Lets take Ubuntu for example, since that is supposedly the "user friendly" Linux and compare it to the oldest version of Windows still supported, Windows Vista. Now I can take Windows Vista RTM and update it to current and ALL of the drivers that worked on the start WILL be working at the end and will continue working for the life of the OS (and even after,just for shits and giggles I upgraded a system from Vista all the way to 8.1 and all the drivers worked throughout) now for you to just keep the same level of patch support with Ubuntu you'd have to go from 6.10 to 15.4 which IIRC is FOURTEEN releases that you as a consumer would have been expected to apply...now do you really think the drivers that worked in Ubuntu 6 will be working even in ubuntu 10, much less 15? I can tell you for a fact they won't be working by Ubuntu 8 because I've done the "Hairyfeet Challenge" multiple times with bog standard systems here at the shop and have yet to have Ubuntu (or any other distro) last more than 2 upgrades without crapping on one or more of its drivers.
I'm sure you've gotten so used to fixing driver issues on upgrade you don't even notice it, its like how we Windows users are used to doing our backups the second Tuesday of every month, but spending my time "googling for fixes" every release is NOT how I want to spend a weekend. But if you want to try it yourself feel free to grab some old junker and take The Hairyfeet Challenge and see for yourself. I really wish it weren't so as Windows licenses suck for system builders but its a fact, Torvalds driver model is shite.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday July 19 2015, @01:39AM
Except for the times where Linux support is better...
...using Windows xp one time on my wife's computer ( quite a few years ago) I bought a printer that was both xp and Linux compatible.
Install the drivers for the printer:wasted an hour rebooting every time it installed each driver (printer, scanner, fax, etc) and also having to update internet explorer for the printer!
Plugged the printer into my Linux box and 20 seconds later, it was Installed and fully ready to use.
I'm using(trying) Arch(antergos) currently and with their rolling release, the driver problem shouldn't really exist (or so I think).
Anywho, I guess I'd really rather go through the hairyfeet challenge with Linux then the kill me now challenge with Windows (the modem driver doesn't come pre-exisisting in Windows... would you like to download it from the internet!!!!!!) Sure MS, show me how to download the driver for the internet when I have no driver for the internet connection!?!?!!!
Guess we just disagree. :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by albert on Thursday July 16 2015, @07:44PM
Chip designs are not TOP SECRET//SCI//SAP controlled. It doesn't take a Snowden to get the goods.
Intel can and does hire people from numerous countries. These people, obviously, normally feel patriotic toward their homelands. Often they even face pressure, such as bad things being done to family members.
Intel almost certainly doesn't keep information strictly on computers that can't access the Internet. Locked doors are not a serious impediment if a random consultant or trainer can plug into a network. Never mind firewall rules; the opponents likely have 0-day exploits in the routers. There is also a budget easily capable of building malicious USB sticks that turn into keyboards when nobody is likely to notice. I doubt that Intel is banning cell phones, hearing aids, etc.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Post-Nihilist on Thursday July 16 2015, @08:53PM
You can not export anything to those persons [doc.gov], those Entity [state.gov] and those one [treasury.gov] too. Also additional restrictions [cornell.edu] applies to chips and designs having more 5Gflops of computing power.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Friday July 17 2015, @02:08AM
Intel can and does hire people from numerous countries.
Intel only? What about AMD? What about IBM? Or Apple? Or Samsung? You know, these things is not exactly "secret knowledge". It's in books and other publications.
There is also a budget easily capable of building malicious USB sticks that turn into keyboards when nobody is likely to notice.
Well, that's part of the standard. I could do that with re-enumeration more than a decade ago. I don't understand what the hoopla is all about. EZ-USB chips from Cypress Semiconductor were designed for precisely this part of the standard. You plug them in, they enumerate as some device, driver pushes some firmware onto them, then they reset and re-enumerate as a different device. Devices can re-enumerate at any time.
If you don't want something to re-enumerate as a keyboard or mouse, then you do that at the OS level. The OS should ask for confirmation that a given device at a given USB port is indeed what it says it is. And when there is a replug event, you ask again.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @09:02PM
The export laws are largely irrelevant when you are talking about the country who has led the field in state-sponsored corporate espionage for decades.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @09:02PM
Repress Recollection Command: ZzuGAcOEJy_mUGbrUt2Nr_QCInmHQ6QQH_jm3mUm007fqAa6QkDwaWV45gURdXU
(Score: 1, Insightful) by citizenr on Thursday July 16 2015, @10:34PM
Those are Chinese teraflops, just like Chinese batteries come with Chinese version of mah/WH capacity rating.
You need to divide that number by between 2 and 8 before comparing with real world.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 17 2015, @05:43PM
You need to divide that number by between 2 and 8 before comparing with real world.
News Flash: The rest of the world's chips are also made in China.
(Score: 1) by citizenr on Friday July 17 2015, @10:31PM
No, computers are assembled in China, but there are no CPU fabs there. Flash/ram yes, but no cpus.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by seeprime on Thursday July 16 2015, @10:38PM
How can anyone expect a major manufacturing country like China to not develop its own processors? Intel has a fab in Dalian, China. Why does anyone think that the designs made there aren't known to the host country? The US government can be baffling at times.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Thursday July 16 2015, @11:22PM
Looks like AMD will never again compete with Intel, which leaves Intel with no competition for the desktop and server markets. The Chinese are smart and are willing to shovel a ton of money at the problem. That gives Intel competition sometime in the future, which is good for us 99%'ers.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @01:42AM
USamericans rely heavily on their own ingenuity. And they forget that brains are everywhere, it's just a matter of time and money. The Chinese have both, and also have many more brains.