[ossig] Chinese supercomputer launched

[Nan Phin <nplee@tm.net.my>]

By Staff, CNETAsia
Monday, March 17 2003 4:16 PM


China has launched its first domestic supercomputer, according to the government newspaper the People's Daily.

The Dawning 4000L computer has been designed to provide more than 3 teraflops of computing power for scientific and other types of
information processing. It houses 644 Intel processors, 644GB of memory and 100 terabytes of storage. It is believed to run on the
open-source Linux operating system.

However other reports say that it pales in comparison to supercomputers from NEC, IBM and Hewlett-Packard, which are several times
more powerful. The Chinese machine is expected to be a lower-cost alternative for domestic universities and scientific institutions.





Dr. Sun Ninghui, the dean of the National Research Center for Intelligent Computing Systems (NCIC), said was quoted in the People's
Daily as saying that the device was a milestone for China's high performance super-server industry. It was jointly developed by the
NCIC and computer maker Dawning Information Industry.

The machine be upgraded to operate at 6.75 teraflops when equipped with 1,300 processors, said the report.

In contrast, NEC's Earth Simulator supercomputer consists of over 5,200 processors and 40 teraflops of power. IBM's upcoming Blue
Gene supercomputers will boast 65,000 processors.




--

best wishes.
/nan phin

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.



------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe: send mail to ossig-request@mncc.com.my
with "unsubscribe ossig" in the body of the message