News on China's scientific and technological development.
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Quickie
Colonel
The 'Tianhe' supercomputer is designed to reach 1.206 petaflop, which is faster than the current fastest supercomputer in the world. Apparently, it's currently built to only less than half that speed, but still good enough to be among the fastest supercomputer in the June 2009 World Top 500 supercomputer list.
Defense university builds China's fastest supercomputer
by Xinhua writers Yu Fei, Bai Ruixue and Wang Yushan
CHANGSHA, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) unveiled Thursday China's fastest supercomputer, which could rival the world's most powerful computing devices.
The supercomputer, named Tianhe, meaning Milky Way, is theoretically able to do more than 1 quadrillion calculations per second (one petaflop) at peak speed.
A single-day task for Tianhe might take a mainstream dual-core personal computer 160 years to complete, working non-top -- if it can last that long.
NUDT president Zhang Yulin said the 155-ton system, with 103 refrigerator-like cabinets lined up on an area of about 1,000 square meters, is expected to process seismic data for oil exploration, conduct bio-medical computing and help design aerospace vehicles.
China's national high-technology research and development program and the Binhai New Area, a major economic development zonein the northern port city of Tianjin jointly financed Tianhe, which cost at least 600 million yuan (88.24 million U.S. dollars).
Tianhe's peak performance reaches 1.206 petaflops, and it runs at 563.1 teraflops (1,000 teraflops equals one petaflop) on the Linpack benchmark, which was originally developed by U.S. computer scientist Jack Dongarra and has become an internationally recognized method to measure a supercomputer's real performance in practical use.
Zhang said the technical data of Tianhe had been submitted to the world Top 500 list, compiled by the University of Mannheim, in Germany, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Tennessee in the United States.
The next Top 500 supercomputer list will be released in November.
The performance of Tianhe would have made it the world's fourth most powerful supercomputer in the most recent ranking in June.
"I was shocked at the milestone breakthrough, which was beyond expectation," said Zhang Yunquan, a researcher with the Institute of Software of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and an organizer of the China Top 100 list, which was released at a national conference on high-performance computers Thursday.
"I previously forecast China's first petaflop computer no earlier than the end of 2010," Zhang said.
The giant device, a product of 200 computer scientists and two years' work, was housed in the NUDT campus in Changsha, Hunan Province, and would be moved to the National Supercomputing Centerin Tianjin at the end of 2009, said Li Nan, chief coordinator of the program.
Equipped with 6,144 Intel CPUs and 5,120 AMD GPUs, Tianhe was able to store all 27 million books in the National Library of China four times over, said Zhou Xingming, an academician of CAS and a professor with NUDT.
"As far as I know, a combination of CPU and GPU is something new used to make a petaflop computer. A GPU, or graphic processing unit, plays a role as an accelerator to make the computer run faster, but reduces its power consumption and cost," Zhou explained.
"After it's installed in Tianjin, we plan to add hundreds or thousands of China-made CPUs to the machine, and improve its Linpack performance to over 800 teraflops," Zhou said.
Although its annual electricity bill can be as high as 18 million yuan, Tianhe could have been ranked the world's fifth greenest supercomputer, according to Green500 List in June, compiled by researchers at Virginia Tech aiming to provide a ranking of the most energy-efficient supercomputers in the world and serve as a complementary view to the TOP500.
Of the world's fastest 500 supercomputers, the United States alone has invented 291, including the top 10, Europe has 145 and Asia 49, the June World Top 500 List said.
In the same list, the Chinese mainland has 20 high-performance computers, with CPUs all supplied by foreign manufacturers.
China's Dawning Information Industry Company is attempting to build its own supercomputer that overcomes the petaflop barrier by2010.
Editor: Lin Liyu
Defense university builds China's fastest supercomputer
by Xinhua writers Yu Fei, Bai Ruixue and Wang Yushan
CHANGSHA, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) unveiled Thursday China's fastest supercomputer, which could rival the world's most powerful computing devices.
The supercomputer, named Tianhe, meaning Milky Way, is theoretically able to do more than 1 quadrillion calculations per second (one petaflop) at peak speed.
A single-day task for Tianhe might take a mainstream dual-core personal computer 160 years to complete, working non-top -- if it can last that long.
NUDT president Zhang Yulin said the 155-ton system, with 103 refrigerator-like cabinets lined up on an area of about 1,000 square meters, is expected to process seismic data for oil exploration, conduct bio-medical computing and help design aerospace vehicles.
China's national high-technology research and development program and the Binhai New Area, a major economic development zonein the northern port city of Tianjin jointly financed Tianhe, which cost at least 600 million yuan (88.24 million U.S. dollars).
Tianhe's peak performance reaches 1.206 petaflops, and it runs at 563.1 teraflops (1,000 teraflops equals one petaflop) on the Linpack benchmark, which was originally developed by U.S. computer scientist Jack Dongarra and has become an internationally recognized method to measure a supercomputer's real performance in practical use.
Zhang said the technical data of Tianhe had been submitted to the world Top 500 list, compiled by the University of Mannheim, in Germany, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Tennessee in the United States.
The next Top 500 supercomputer list will be released in November.
The performance of Tianhe would have made it the world's fourth most powerful supercomputer in the most recent ranking in June.
"I was shocked at the milestone breakthrough, which was beyond expectation," said Zhang Yunquan, a researcher with the Institute of Software of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and an organizer of the China Top 100 list, which was released at a national conference on high-performance computers Thursday.
"I previously forecast China's first petaflop computer no earlier than the end of 2010," Zhang said.
The giant device, a product of 200 computer scientists and two years' work, was housed in the NUDT campus in Changsha, Hunan Province, and would be moved to the National Supercomputing Centerin Tianjin at the end of 2009, said Li Nan, chief coordinator of the program.
Equipped with 6,144 Intel CPUs and 5,120 AMD GPUs, Tianhe was able to store all 27 million books in the National Library of China four times over, said Zhou Xingming, an academician of CAS and a professor with NUDT.
"As far as I know, a combination of CPU and GPU is something new used to make a petaflop computer. A GPU, or graphic processing unit, plays a role as an accelerator to make the computer run faster, but reduces its power consumption and cost," Zhou explained.
"After it's installed in Tianjin, we plan to add hundreds or thousands of China-made CPUs to the machine, and improve its Linpack performance to over 800 teraflops," Zhou said.
Although its annual electricity bill can be as high as 18 million yuan, Tianhe could have been ranked the world's fifth greenest supercomputer, according to Green500 List in June, compiled by researchers at Virginia Tech aiming to provide a ranking of the most energy-efficient supercomputers in the world and serve as a complementary view to the TOP500.
Of the world's fastest 500 supercomputers, the United States alone has invented 291, including the top 10, Europe has 145 and Asia 49, the June World Top 500 List said.
In the same list, the Chinese mainland has 20 high-performance computers, with CPUs all supplied by foreign manufacturers.
China's Dawning Information Industry Company is attempting to build its own supercomputer that overcomes the petaflop barrier by2010.
Editor: Lin Liyu
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bladerunner
Banned Idiot
Thats great but: but perhaps they could but it to greater use ....se below.
ff I settle for one of those mega million superfast computers that investment banks supposedly use while indulging in the practice of frontrunning.
For those who dont know what frontrunning is, its a term applied to people/ institutions who jump in at the stock market and buys shares in a targeted company before anyone else, and then sells them again
apparently theres a 3/10th of a second built in lag in the system when purchaserA pushes the buy button. this allows for purchaserB armed with this knowledge through his super fast computer to make the purchase before A, and then perhaps selling to A and others at a higher price. In a nutshell, its using a super duper fast computer to gain inside knowledge.
Apparently all/ most of the big shots in the investment banking do it, thats how they are returning such massive profits in the last two quarters.
How fast would you rate a computer that could do that? Paying 88mill for the worlds fastest computer would be chicken feed
ff I settle for one of those mega million superfast computers that investment banks supposedly use while indulging in the practice of frontrunning.For those who dont know what frontrunning is, its a term applied to people/ institutions who jump in at the stock market and buys shares in a targeted company before anyone else, and then sells them again
apparently theres a 3/10th of a second built in lag in the system when purchaserA pushes the buy button. this allows for purchaserB armed with this knowledge through his super fast computer to make the purchase before A, and then perhaps selling to A and others at a higher price. In a nutshell, its using a super duper fast computer to gain inside knowledge.
Apparently all/ most of the big shots in the investment banking do it, thats how they are returning such massive profits in the last two quarters.
How fast would you rate a computer that could do that? Paying 88mill for the worlds fastest computer would be chicken feed
RedMercury
Junior Member
To my understanding, this trick that investment companies use depends on the latency of their network connection to the stock exchange, and not on the speed of the computer. Network latencies are orders of magnitude slower than computation time.
As to the news article, to my understanding, the peak performance is not the metric used in the Top 500 comparison, but the linpack benchmark is. I believe peak performance is a theoretical number that can occur if everything goes right in the calculation (e.g. cache hits, branch predictions), but not something you expect to achieve on every or the average calculation. That's why something like a standardized benchmark is used to do empirical comparisons. Nevertheless, it is a nice achievement to be in the top 5.
As to the news article, to my understanding, the peak performance is not the metric used in the Top 500 comparison, but the linpack benchmark is. I believe peak performance is a theoretical number that can occur if everything goes right in the calculation (e.g. cache hits, branch predictions), but not something you expect to achieve on every or the average calculation. That's why something like a standardized benchmark is used to do empirical comparisons. Nevertheless, it is a nice achievement to be in the top 5.
bladerunner
Banned Idiot
Quickie
Colonel
The Top 500 supercomputer list uses the Linpack benchmark. The reason the Tianhe was only partly built-up is probably because the whole system is going to be installed in another location in Tianjin.
"Any ideas on how the company engaging in front running actualy intercepts the buy request? "
They can actually set up a branch in the same building as the stock exchange. This way, they can get ahead of the transaction protocols involving the other customer. So, instead of getting a 'sold' confirmation, the customer would get a "already taken" confirmation.
Still, I think this problem is not unsolvable.
"Any ideas on how the company engaging in front running actualy intercepts the buy request? "
They can actually set up a branch in the same building as the stock exchange. This way, they can get ahead of the transaction protocols involving the other customer. So, instead of getting a 'sold' confirmation, the customer would get a "already taken" confirmation.
Still, I think this problem is not unsolvable.
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RedMercury
Junior Member
They don't intercept, they "probe". Again, I'm summarizing what I heard from a colleague, who read an article on this, so this is hazy. From what I understand, some companies have certain computer-controlled trading actions based on very simple criteria. One example criteria is if a previous trade was at a price below or above a simple threshold. Then the more sophisticated companies will make small "probe" trades to find these thresholds. When the pass the threshold, the naive company will automatically react by doing such and such. The sophisticated company then learns the threshold. Now is when the exploit begins. The sophisticated company then makes a series of small probes which pass the threshold. This triggers the naive company to make a series of trades in response. However, the sophisticated company has lower network latency, and it performs another action which exploits this fact to beat the naive company's trade instruction to the exchange. The details of what kind of action I'm not familiar with since I'm no expert on financial instruments. The sophisticated company then repeats this procedure ad nauseam. The repeating part (until the naive company realizes something is amiss) is what makes the huge wads of cash, since each individual transaction is a pittance. Again, this is my understanding, and probably only one such attack possible when you have a faster network connection to the stock exchange.
bladerunner
Banned Idiot
Thanks , it clears a few things up for me.
I don't know why nobody posted this. Someone has to. Its that important as a news. All over many news yesterday, just a sample here.
Father of China`s Space, Nuke Programs Dies
NOVEMBER 02, 2009 08:15
Qian Xuesen, considered the father of China`s space technology program, died in Beijing Saturday morning, Chinese media said yesterday. He was 98.
Born in Hangzhou in December 1911, Qian graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1934 before studying aviation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1935. At the time, China was seething with revolution and war against imperial Japan.
In 1939, he received a doctorate in aviation and mathematics from California Institute of Technology. He also participated in the U.S. Scientific Advisory Board’s missile development in World War II.
Qian could not return to China for many years because of the U.S. government’s efforts to prevent a brain drain. He finally returned home in 1955 after being exchanged with an American pilot captured by China in the Korean War.
After Qian’s return, he led China’s development of nuclear weapons and its space program.
He was behind China’s first nuclear bomb test in October 1964, hydrogen bomb test in June 1967, and the launch of its first artificial satellite in April 1970. In addition, he contributed to the October 2003 launch of China’s first manned space aircraft.
Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Qian in the hospital in January this year, while Premier Wen Jiabao visited the scientist’s home four times.
Qian was beloved by the Chinese people not just because of his contributions to China’s technology, but also for instilling patriotism and national pride in them. He deeply moved his countrymen by saying the time he spent in the U.S. was his preparation for working for China because he was a Chinese, adding the Chinese people could do what foreigners could.
Despite heaps of praise, he remained humble. He said China’s development of the atomic bomb and artificial satellite were the works of thousands of scientists, not just one man.
When China’s official CCTV selected him as one of ten people who “touched” China, he said, “China and its people are great, not me.”
He was also related to Qian Yongjian, 57, also known as his American name Roger Y. Tsien, who received the Nobel Prize for chemistry last year. Many from the Qian family are famous scientists.
Qian Xuesen received the highest awards from the Chinese government and the Central Military Commission.
His funeral is set for Saturday. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party will host the ceremony.
Father of China`s Space, Nuke Programs Dies
NOVEMBER 02, 2009 08:15
Qian Xuesen, considered the father of China`s space technology program, died in Beijing Saturday morning, Chinese media said yesterday. He was 98.
Born in Hangzhou in December 1911, Qian graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1934 before studying aviation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1935. At the time, China was seething with revolution and war against imperial Japan.
In 1939, he received a doctorate in aviation and mathematics from California Institute of Technology. He also participated in the U.S. Scientific Advisory Board’s missile development in World War II.
Qian could not return to China for many years because of the U.S. government’s efforts to prevent a brain drain. He finally returned home in 1955 after being exchanged with an American pilot captured by China in the Korean War.
After Qian’s return, he led China’s development of nuclear weapons and its space program.
He was behind China’s first nuclear bomb test in October 1964, hydrogen bomb test in June 1967, and the launch of its first artificial satellite in April 1970. In addition, he contributed to the October 2003 launch of China’s first manned space aircraft.
Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Qian in the hospital in January this year, while Premier Wen Jiabao visited the scientist’s home four times.
Qian was beloved by the Chinese people not just because of his contributions to China’s technology, but also for instilling patriotism and national pride in them. He deeply moved his countrymen by saying the time he spent in the U.S. was his preparation for working for China because he was a Chinese, adding the Chinese people could do what foreigners could.
Despite heaps of praise, he remained humble. He said China’s development of the atomic bomb and artificial satellite were the works of thousands of scientists, not just one man.
When China’s official CCTV selected him as one of ten people who “touched” China, he said, “China and its people are great, not me.”
He was also related to Qian Yongjian, 57, also known as his American name Roger Y. Tsien, who received the Nobel Prize for chemistry last year. Many from the Qian family are famous scientists.
Qian Xuesen received the highest awards from the Chinese government and the Central Military Commission.
His funeral is set for Saturday. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party will host the ceremony.
Quickie
Colonel
I kind of wonder why nobody posted the news too. And now, news of the death of another China's famous scientist.
CAS oldest academician, founder of China's biophysics dies at 107
2009-10-31 23:52:12 Print
BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Bei Shizhang, a renowned biologist and educator and founder of China's biophysics, died Thursday morning at the age of 107, according to a statement from the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) Saturday.
This is an undated file photo of Bei Shizhang. Bei Shizhang, founder of China's biophysics and exobiology sciences, passed away in Beijing on Oct. 29, 2009. Bei, considered as the "Father of Biophysics" in China, was born in Oct. 10, 1903, at Zhenhai county of east China's Zhejiang Province. He is the founder, the first chief director and current honorary director of Biophysics Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences. (Xinhua)
Photo Gallery>>>
Bei Shizhang, widely considered as the "Father of Biophysics" in China, was born on Oct. 10, 1903, at Zhenhai county of east China's Zhejiang Province.
He is the founder of China's biophysics, radiobiology, cosmobiology and has made important contributions to China's life science and manned space program, read the statement.
He is also a pioneer of Chinese life science research and education and served as the first chief director and honorary director of CAS's Biophysics Institute.
File photo shows Bei Shizhang (L) giving instructions to other researchers in 1990. Bei Shizhang, founder of China's biophysics and exobiology sciences, passed away in Beijing on Oct. 29, 2009. (Xinhua)
Photo Gallery>>>
Editor: Mu Xuequan
CAS oldest academician, founder of China's biophysics dies at 107
2009-10-31 23:52:12 Print
BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Bei Shizhang, a renowned biologist and educator and founder of China's biophysics, died Thursday morning at the age of 107, according to a statement from the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) Saturday.
This is an undated file photo of Bei Shizhang. Bei Shizhang, founder of China's biophysics and exobiology sciences, passed away in Beijing on Oct. 29, 2009. Bei, considered as the "Father of Biophysics" in China, was born in Oct. 10, 1903, at Zhenhai county of east China's Zhejiang Province. He is the founder, the first chief director and current honorary director of Biophysics Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences. (Xinhua)
Photo Gallery>>>
Bei Shizhang, widely considered as the "Father of Biophysics" in China, was born on Oct. 10, 1903, at Zhenhai county of east China's Zhejiang Province.
He is the founder of China's biophysics, radiobiology, cosmobiology and has made important contributions to China's life science and manned space program, read the statement.
He is also a pioneer of Chinese life science research and education and served as the first chief director and honorary director of CAS's Biophysics Institute.
File photo shows Bei Shizhang (L) giving instructions to other researchers in 1990. Bei Shizhang, founder of China's biophysics and exobiology sciences, passed away in Beijing on Oct. 29, 2009. (Xinhua)
Photo Gallery>>>
Editor: Mu Xuequan
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