http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/world/asia/china-unveils-supercomputer-based-on-its-own-microprocessor-chips.html
The world's fastest supercomputers:
#1. Japan's K Computer, at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for
Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe... capable of performing 8
PETAFLOPs (8 quadrillion calculations) per second.
(Processor chips originally made by Sun MicroSystem, Sillicon Valey,
USA)
#2. China's Tianhe-1A supercomputer the National Supercomputing
Center in Tianjin, China, with a performance at 2.6 petaflop/s.
(Processor chips also made by USA companies, Intel and Nvidia.)
#3. Cray's supercomputer, the Jaguar, at the Department of Energy
facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, USA, at 1.6
petaflop/second.
#4. Nebulae at China’s National Supercomputing Center in Shenzen
(1.27 petaflop/s),
#5. Tsubame 2.0 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (1.19 petaflop/
s),
#6. Cielo at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico (1.11
petaflop/s),
#7. Pleiades at the NASA Ames Research Center in California (1.09
petaflop/s),
#8. Hopper at DOE’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing
Center (NERSC) in California (1.054 petaflop/s),
#9. Tera 100 at the CEA (Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux
énergies alternatives) in France (1.05 petaflop/s),
#10. Roadrunner at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico (1.04
petaflop/s)....
And, finally, I think.... China's latest, unveiled today, October 28,
2011, per the New York Times article above....
#11. The new machine, the Sunway BlueLight MPP, China's newest
supercomputer at the National Supercomputer Center in Jinan, the
capital of Shandong Province in eastern China, performing around 1
petaflop/second.
But what is more special about #11 is that all its operating micro
processor chips are made IN CHINA, a truly "home made" super-computer,
as opposed to China other ones listed above, made from chips made in
the West....
So the raw speed of Sunway itself, as the American scientists noted,
is NOT that big of a deal... Rather, what's special about this Chinese
made super computer is that, ONE, its chips are made entirely in China
and that, TWO, the Chinese seem to be more or less on a par with the
West in terms of coming up with a COOLING SYSTEM that would allow
super computers to move to the next level, beyond PETAPLOPs, into
EXAFLOPs, or one Million TRILLION calculations per second.
Chipwise, scientists, per the article here, said the Chinese are about
3 generations behind the USA, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.... but
"one generation" in processor chip is rather short, from a few months
to, at most, a year or two... so the Chinese aren't that far behind
the West, Taiwan, South Korea, or Japan. It's really, mostly a brute
force, a physical-technical design and redesign, that gets you to the
next generation, requiring a few months to a few years of technical
and infrastructural upgrades...
But the more important thing the Chinese have achieved in this
moderately fast "home made" super computer is, scientists say, that
they are VIRTUALLY parity with the West in terms of wandering
aimlessly around the most complex issue of: How the hell do we keep
an incredibly fast super computer from melting? What kind of super
cooling system do we need to build?
That question MUST be solved, if any country hopes to take super
computer to the next level in terms of raw speed, beyond the
"petaflop" level on to the "exaflop" territory, in the next 10 or so
years.... And NO ONE has any concrete idea. Yet... although thousands
of scientists, loners and teams, are working on that elusive, next
generation of super cool, cooling system.... Because without an
effective cooliing system, theoretically you could design and build a
super computer that has raw speed 10 or 100 times as fast as the
current ones... but they can't be run since running them would melt
the computer itself....
But perhaps the QUANTUM COMPUTER is truly the next generation, the way
to go.... if technical problems dealing traditional cooling systems
are that difficult to crack, beyond this point, that is... since
quantum computers operate on a totally different paradigm from
traditional computers/super computers.... needing less energy to
operate, requiring LESS cooling system mechanisms and mechinations...