China’s Tianhe-2 Retains Top Spot on List of World’s Top Supercomputers

[ChineseTiger1986]

For the sixth consecutive time, Tianhe-2, a supercomputer developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, has maintained its position as the world’s No. 1 system, according to the 46th edition of the twice-yearly TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

Overall, change at the top of the list is again minor, with only two new systems in the Top 10:

#6: the Trinity supercomputer built by Cray and jointly deployed by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories

#8: the Hazel-Hen system built by Cray and installed at the HLRS - Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum Stuttgart in Germany

In the bigger picture, China nearly tripled the number of systems on the latest list, while the number of systems in the United States has fallen to the lowest point since the TOP500 list was created in 1993. China is also carving out a bigger share as a manufacturer of high performance computers with multiple Chinese manufacturers becoming more active in this field.

Tianhe-2, which means Milky Way-2, led the list with a performance of 33.86 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second or Pflop/s) on the Linpack benchmark.

Keeping its hold on the No. 2 spot is Titan, a Cray XK7 system installed at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Titan, the top system in the United States and one of the most energy-efficient systems on the list, achieved 17.59 petaflop/s on the Linpack benchmark.

The only new entries in the Top 10 supercomputers on the latest list are Trinity and Hazel-Hen.

• Trinity is a Cray XC system, which has 301,056 cores and achieved 8.1 Pflops/s. Trinity is managed and operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories under the Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale (ACES) partnership.

• Hazel-Hen is also a Cray XC system installed in Germany at the HLRS - Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum Stuttgart — and features 185,088 cores and achieved 5.6 Pflop/s.

Six of the Top 10 systems were installed in 2011 or 2012, Tianhe-2 in 2013 and only Trinity, Hazel-Hen, and Shaheen II in Saudi Arabia were installed in 2015. This low level of turnover among the top supercomputers reflects a slowing trend that began in 2008.

China’s Tianhe-2 Retains Top Spot on List of World’s Top Supercomputers

 

[Economic superpower]

China Is Becoming a Supercomputing Powerhouse

U.S. tally of world’s most powerful supercomputers is at its lowest since Top500 list began

The Tianhe-2 supercomputer, developed by China's National University of Defense Technology.


China is experiencing a supercomputing boom.

For the past two years, the country has been home to the world’s most powerful supercomputer, the National University of Defense Technology’s Tianhe-2 machine. But China’s prowess at building supercomputers is becoming widespread.

China now hosts 109 of the high-performance computing systems on a widely watched list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers that was released Monday. The country had just 37 machines on the list only six months ago.

The U.S. remains home to the largest number of supercomputers on the list, but with 200 machines, the U.S. tally has fallen to its lowest level since computer scientists began compiling the list, called the Top500, back in 1993.

The U.S. is slipping on the Top500 list even as the country performs an unprecedented build-out of high-performance computing. Over the past decade, companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. have spent billions building massive data centers that operate as supercomputers for the Internet. These systems, however, aren't optimized for the type of calculations that the Top500 list’s benchmarks test for.

The results don't reflect so much a slowdown of U.S. supercomputing efforts as an acceleration of high-performance computing build-outs in China, said Horst Simon, deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“China has recognized the value of high-performance computing for modeling and simulation and has ramped up simulations and created a broad base of installations that is very competitive with the U.S.," Mr. Simon said.

The Top500 results are important because they serve as a shorthand way of viewing international competitiveness in computer simulations. Originally used for scientific modeling in physics and chemistry, these systems are increasingly used to simulate consumer products—everything from automobiles to diapers.

“There’s a huge productivity gain if you can use high-performance computing,” Mr. Simon said.

Tianhe-2, which has been ranked the world’s most powerful supercomputer since June 2013, is capable of performing 33.86 quadrillion calculations a second. The system ranked second on the list, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan, can perform 17.59 quadrillion calculations a second.

China also has an improved position on the list because Chinese companies such as Lenovo Group Ltd. and Sugon Information Industry Co. have become better at marketing and are now much more aggressive in encouraging their customers to run the benchmarking tests required to get on the Top500 list.

That is something that U.S. companies have been doing for years, Mr. Simon said. “The Chinese have opened up to some American-style marketing efforts to make sure they get the visibility and the press.”

 

[Dungeness]

China Triples Top Supercomputer Count in 2015

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

The number one contender in 2016 will be both from China.

It will be Sunway vs Tianhe-2A as both will exceed 100 petaflops.

 

[Dungeness]

The number one contender in 2016 will be both from China.

It will be Sunway vs Tianhe-2A as both will exceed 100 petaflops.

I heard both will be using Chinese processors. Just don't know what kind of domestic processors they can use.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

I heard both will be using Chinese processors. Just don't know what kind of domestic processors they can use.

The Sunway will still be the Sunway (Shenwei) processors as usual, while not sure about the Tianhe-2A.

 

[C130]

not for long.

the U.S has in the works 3 supercomputers with 100 to 300 petaflop performance

NVIDIA Volta GPUs and IBM Power9 CPUs To Deliver Up To 300 PetaFlops of Performance in 2017 With Summit and Sierra Supercomputers
Intel's 10nm Knights Hill Powered Aurora Supercomputer To Feature Up To 180 PetaFlops Computational Power - 2018 Launch Scheduled


so tell me how is China suppose to build it's next gen supercomputers and even upgrade the Tiahe-2 if it can't buy U.S semiconduters

are you going to use longsoon processors or even Russia Elbrus

maybe if you play nice with Japan they'll let you use SPARC 64

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

not for long.

the U.S has in the works 3 supercomputers with 100 to 300 petaflop performance

NVIDIA Volta GPUs and IBM Power9 CPUs To Deliver Up To 300 PetaFlops of Performance in 2017 With Summit and Sierra Supercomputers
Intel's 10nm Knights Hill Powered Aurora Supercomputer To Feature Up To 180 PetaFlops Computational Power - 2018 Launch Scheduled


so tell me how is China suppose to build it's next gen supercomputers and even upgrade the Tiahe-2 if it can't buy U.S semiconduters

are you going to use longsoon processors or even Russia Elbrus

maybe if you play nice with Japan they'll let you use SPARC 64

China will have two 100 petaflops supercomputers by 2016 regardless the US sells us the CPU or not.

No thanks, please mind your own business.

 

[Economic superpower]

not for long.

the U.S has in the works 3 supercomputers with 100 to 300 petaflop performance

NVIDIA Volta GPUs and IBM Power9 CPUs To Deliver Up To 300 PetaFlops of Performance in 2017 With Summit and Sierra Supercomputers
Intel's 10nm Knights Hill Powered Aurora Supercomputer To Feature Up To 180 PetaFlops Computational Power - 2018 Launch Scheduled


so tell me how is China suppose to build it's next gen supercomputers and even upgrade the Tiahe-2 if it can't buy U.S semiconduters

are you going to use longsoon processors or even Russia Elbrus

maybe if you play nice with Japan they'll let you use SPARC 64

China has 3 different chips.
ShenWei, Loongson and FeiTeng.

China's Sunway supercomputer was built from ShenWei chips in 2011 and was ranked #14 in the Top500 list at that time.

Laugh all you want but underestimate China at your own peril.

 

[C130]

China will have two 100 petaflops supercomputers by 2016 regardless the US sells us the CPU or not.

No thanks, please mind your own business.

with what hardware??

China Is Becoming a Supercomputing Powerhouse

U.S. tally of world’s most powerful supercomputers is at its lowest since Top500 list began

The Tianhe-2 supercomputer, developed by China's National University of Defense Technology.


China is experiencing a supercomputing boom.

For the past two years, the country has been home to the world’s most powerful supercomputer, the National University of Defense Technology’s Tianhe-2 machine. But China’s prowess at building supercomputers is becoming widespread.

China now hosts 109 of the high-performance computing systems on a widely watched list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers that was released Monday. The country had just 37 machines on the list only six months ago.

The U.S. remains home to the largest number of supercomputers on the list, but with 200 machines, the U.S. tally has fallen to its lowest level since computer scientists began compiling the list, called the Top500, back in 1993.

The U.S. is slipping on the Top500 list even as the country performs an unprecedented build-out of high-performance computing. Over the past decade, companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. have spent billions building massive data centers that operate as supercomputers for the Internet. These systems, however, aren't optimized for the type of calculations that the Top500 list’s benchmarks test for.

The results don't reflect so much a slowdown of U.S. supercomputing efforts as an acceleration of high-performance computing build-outs in China, said Horst Simon, deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“China has recognized the value of high-performance computing for modeling and simulation and has ramped up simulations and created a broad base of installations that is very competitive with the U.S.," Mr. Simon said.

The Top500 results are important because they serve as a shorthand way of viewing international competitiveness in computer simulations. Originally used for scientific modeling in physics and chemistry, these systems are increasingly used to simulate consumer products—everything from automobiles to diapers.

“There’s a huge productivity gain if you can use high-performance computing,” Mr. Simon said.

Tianhe-2, which has been ranked the world’s most powerful supercomputer since June 2013, is capable of performing 33.86 quadrillion calculations a second. The system ranked second on the list, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan, can perform 17.59 quadrillion calculations a second.

China also has an improved position on the list because Chinese companies such as Lenovo Group Ltd. and Sugon Information Industry Co. have become better at marketing and are now much more aggressive in encouraging their customers to run the benchmarking tests required to get on the Top500 list.

That is something that U.S. companies have been doing for years, Mr. Simon said. “The Chinese have opened up to some American-style marketing efforts to make sure they get the visibility and the press.”

ayy we got the number 1 supercomputer U.S is losing spots in the Top500 China is catching

but then I show how delusional that reality is

you have the number 1 but then the next fastest Chinese system is 26th then 34th and 56th

meanwhile the us has not only quantity but quality as well

2nd 3rd 5th 6th 10th 12th 13th 14th 15th well you see where I am going with this

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

with what hardware??

China's first petaflop supercomputer with the indigenous CPU.

BTW, this was 2011, we are now 2015, soon it will be 2016.

West vs. East: China builds petaflop homegrown supercomputer | ExtremeTech



And China will clearly accomplish two 100 petaflops supercomputers with the indigenous CPU by 2016, one year ahead of the US 100 petaflops supercomputer.

China May Develop Two 100 Petaflop Machines Within a Year - insideHPC

 

[oproh]

Good job China I can't remember when was the last time an american supercomputer topped the list, another sign of america's continued decline

 

[C130]

China's first petaflop supercomputer with the indigenous CPU.

BTW, this was 2011, we are now 2015, soon it will be 2016.

West vs. East: China builds petaflop homegrown supercomputer | ExtremeTech



And China will clearly accomplish two 100 petaflops supercomputers with the indigenous CPU by 2016, one year ahead of the US 100 petaflops supercomputer.

China May Develop Two 100 Petaflop Machines Within a Year - insideHPC

October 31, 2011 at 10:15 am
really a article from way back in 2011/12??


where is this magical supercomputer now??

why wasn't Tianhe or any other supercomputer by China not using this super Chinese chips


Tianhe-2 was due for a upgrade to 100 petaflops by adding more Intel Xeon processors but Uncle Sam stopped that

if China makes two or more 100+ petaflop supercomputers in 2016 that uses Chinese processors or is even 100% Chinese
I will eat crow

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

if China makes two or more 100+ petaflop supercomputers in 2016 that uses Chinese processors or is even 100% Chinese
I will eat crow

2016 is not far away, why you can't have a little more patience?

Good job China I can't remember when was the last time an american supercomputer topped the list, another sign of america's continued decline

By 2016, the Chinese supercomputers will take both champion and runner-up of the top500 list.

 

[C130]

2016 is not far away, why you can't have a little more patience?



By 2016, the Chinese supercomputers will take both champion and runner-up of the top500 list.

like I said I will eat crow

but in 2017 U.S will have 3 supercomputers above 150 petaflops so it's all good