Although the basic components of supercomputers and personal computers are not much different, but as the most powerful computer, computing speed, storage capacity of the largest type of computer, supercomputer has been regarded as 'national heavy equipment' is the world's countries Competing for the commanding height of science and technology, but also an important indicator of national scientific and technological strength.
Both computing speed and ownership lead
When it comes to supercomputers, maybe everybody feels far away from everyday life, it's not. "As a strategically important technology, supercomputing is no longer limited to basic science and it is playing an important role in areas such as national security In fact, all aspects of our lives are closely linked with the supercomputer. '' Tsinghua University professor Yang Guangwen, director of the National Supercomputing Center, told Technology Daily reporters.
In the fields of petroleum exploration, high-end equipment manufacturing, biomedicine, animation design, etc., supercomputers have broad application prospects.For example, with the help of supercomputer simulation means, scientists can in a relatively short period of time from hundreds of thousands or even millions of The selection of effective pharmaceutical compounds out of the compounds not only saves a lot of money on the purchase of real compounds but also greatly shortens the period of drug development.
In the latest TOP500 world supercomputer list, China's 'Shenwei · Taihu Lake' supercomputer with 12.5 billion per second peak computing power and 9.3 billion per second sustained computing capacity, won the championship. Its 1-minute computing power is equivalent to 7.2 billion people in the world using the calculator for 32 consecutive years.
At present, China is the only supercomputer with a computing power of over 10 billion bps. Other countries have supercomputers running at speeds of several billion bps, or about 23 billion times this year. The United States may launch supercomputers at speeds of about 20 billion operations per second. "Fu Haohuan, an associate professor at Tsinghua University and deputy director of the National Supercomputing Wuxi Center, told Sci-tech Daily reporter.
Our country has not only led the world in the computing performance of supercomputers, but also ranked the top in supercomputers' ownership.Our country accounted for 202 in the new top 500 supercomputer list in the world and 143 in the United States.
Tens of millions of people work together to coordinate scheduling difficulties
This time the EU wants to reverse the decline, the development of the world's fastest supercomputer, but also need to clear a lot of technical 'stumbling block'.
For example, in our country, the light of the "God of War and the Taihu Lake" installed 40,960 Chinese independent Shenwei 26010 core processors in China, and at the same time, there are 260 cores in one processor and a total of more than 10 million cores.
In Yang Guangwen's opinion, how to unify the scheduling of tens of millions of cores and enable applications to effectively distribute computing tasks to these cores is the focus of attention in the field of supercomputer research and development. 'More than 10 million cores solve a problem , Is equivalent to a person commanding thousands of people to work, if not managed scientifically, it is difficult to achieve maximum efficiency of each person.My supercomputer also, the processor core unified scheduling technical difficulty is also multifaceted. Yang Guangwen said.
Yang Guangwen said that the first is the chip technology, to determine what kind of chip is the most appropriate; Second, the chip's interconnection technology, so many chips, in what ways the most efficient combination; Third, power consumption, to minimize power consumption; Fourth Management technology, so many chips how to manage, how to find the problem in time; Finally, the hardware is completed, there must be an application, so that formed a super-ecological, need to constantly improve, constantly updated. So, want to Developing the fastest supercomputer in the world requires a full range of technological breakthroughs.
Fu Haohuan also said that although in recent years due to funding problems, the EU has lagged behind the research and development of supercomputers, but in fact the EU has accumulated the corresponding technology in supercomputer research and development, such as chip research and development, system manufacturing.
The next step in supercomputer to win the battle of applications
At the same time, the EU proposed to develop the fastest supercomputer also triggered netizens on the future of the supercomputer will be in what direction the development of the discussion.
In fact, everyone is now exploring the direction of the next generation of supercomputers, but so far it has not been conclusive.No matter whether in the structure or in the technical solutions are not clear to say, we are still continuing to study, all countries Groping. 'Yang Guangwen said.
Fu Hao Huan said that the next generation of supercomputers, although the speed will certainly improve, but there are changes in the application level.Traditional high-performance computers are more used for simulation work, but in recent years the big data More and more applications, the future of supercomputers may be more focused on computing and big data integration.
International Supercomputing circles have locked the next peak speed of Supercomputer to Grade E, that is, hundred billions of times per second, and the overall project team leader of National 863 Program High Performance Computer and its core software, Professor Qian Depei of Sun Yat-sen University Once said: 'Speaking in terms of speed, billions of times are equivalent to 10 times faster than the fastest computers nowadays, and even an order of magnitude higher in terms of computing density, communication speed, power consumption, etc.' Currently, At the same time, Yang Guangwen also said that in the next generation of ultra-competitive, China will not only win the battle of speed, but also win the battle of applications.
For a long time, the application is considered as the main shortcomings of our super-development.
However, things have changed in Yang Guangwen's view, and he said that so far, the 'Light of Shenwei · Taihu Lake' has been completed and 17 applications have been made, and some achievements have been made in such important fields as weather and climate, aerospace and marine science. In recent years, China has made great strides in the application of supercomputer and has also drawn the great attention of relevant researchers from abroad.