Japan built world's fastest computer

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

As usual, let me give the credit to where it is due. I became
aware of this through my dinosaur friend Ergin's Monday article
in Cumhuriyet.

Sabri

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Japanese Computer Is World's Fastest, as U.S. Falls Back
New York Times, April 20, 2002

By JOHN MARKOFF

SAN FRANCISCO, April 19 ? A Japanese laboratory has built the
world's fastest computer, a machine so powerful that it matches
the raw processing power of the 20 fastest American computers
combined and far outstrips the previous leader, an I.B.M.-built
machine.

The achievement, which was reported today by an American
scientist who tracks the performance of the world's most powerful
computers, is evidence that a technology race that most American
engineers thought they were winning handily is far from over.
American companies have built the fastest computers for most of
the last decade.

The accomplishment is also a vivid statement of contrasting
scientific and technology priorities in the United States and
Japan. The Japanese machine was built to analyze climate change,
including global warming, as well as weather and earthquake
patterns. By contrast, the United States has predominantly
focused its efforts on building powerful computers for simulating
weapons, while its efforts have lagged in scientific areas like
climate modeling.

For some American computer scientists, the arrival of the
Japanese supercomputer evokes the type of alarm raised by the
Soviet Union's Sputnik satellite in 1957.

"In some sense we have a Computenik on our hands," said Jack
Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer scientist who
reported the achievement today. For many years he has maintained
an authoritative list of the world's 500 fastest computers.

Several United States computer scientists said the Japanese
machine reflected differences in style and commitment that
suggest that United States research and spending efforts have
grown complacent in recent years. For now, the new computer will
be used only for climate research, and American scientists have
already begun preparing to move some of their climate simulation
research to run on the Japanese machine.

"The Japanese clearly have a level of will that we haven't
achieved," said Thomas Sterling, a supercomputer designer at the
California Institute of Technology. "These guys are blowing us
out of the water, and we need to sit up and take notice."

The new Japanese supercomputer will have both scientific and
practical applications. It will be used for advanced modeling of
theories about global warming and climate change, and it will be
able to predict short-term weather patterns.

Advances in computer speed today routinely extend computer
simulation into all areas of science and engineering as complex
calculations take an increasingly shorter time. Because increases
in computing power tend to have exponential results, a problem
that could take years for even the fastest computers today might
be finished in hours on the new Japanese computer.

The ability to track the path of a typhoon, for example, is of
immediate relevance to the island nation of Japan. Improved
prediction made possible by a more powerful computer might save
lives and property.

Computer simulation has become a standard tool in both science
and modern design of products ranging from drugs to bicycles.
Computers that are more powerful make possible simulations that
are more accurate and can reduce cost and increase efficiency. At
one time, for example, computers were capable of computing the
flow of air over a single airplane wing but can now cover the
entire aircraft.

The new Japanese supercomputer was financed by the Japanese
government and has been installed at the Earth Simulator Research
and Development Center in Yokohama, west of Tokyo. The Japanese
government spent $350 million to $400 million developing the
system over the last five years, according to Dr. Akira Sekino,
president and chief executive of HNSX Supercomputers, a unit of
the NEC Corporation based in Littleton, Colo.

The new computer was formally dedicated last month, and the Japan
Marine Science and Technology Center said yesterday that the
machine had reached more than 87 percent of its theoretical peak
speed.

"This is a huge achievement for the Japanese," Dr. Sekino said.

NEC sells a scaled-down version of the new supercomputer. Several
United States universities and government agencies have tried to
buy the machines over the last decade for purposes like aircraft
simulation, seismic studies and molecular modeling. But sales
have been thwarted by resistance from the Commerce Department and
members of Congress, who complained that NEC was "dumping" the
machines, or selling them below cost. Last year Cray Inc., a
United States maker of supercomputers, entered into a marketing
agreement to sell the machines in the United States, but no sales
have been announced.

The NEC supercomputers are based on vector processing, a way of
using specialized hardware to solve complex calculations that was
pioneered by the American supercomputer designer Seymour Cray.
The concept has generally fallen out of favor in the United
States in recent years.

Assembled from 640 specialized nodes that are in turn composed of
5,104 processors made by NEC, the new Japanese supercomputer
occupies the space of four tennis courts and has achieved a
computing speed of 35.6 trillion mathematical operations a
second. The processors are linked in a way that allows extremely
efficient operation compared with the previously fastest
"massively parallel" computers, which are based on standard parts
rather than custom-made chips.

The earth simulator project is intended to create a "virtual
earth" on an NEC supercomputer to show what the world will look
like under various climate conditions by means of advanced
numerical simulation. The system is intended to serve as a
research platform for international teams of researchers, and
United States scientists are planning to participate in new
projects made possible by the more powerful computer.

By comparison, the fastest American supercomputer, which until
now held the world computing speed record, is the ASCI White
Pacific computer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in
California. Based on I.B.M. processors, it has achieved a top
speed of 7 trillion math operations a second.

Faster machines are being designed at government-financed labs in
Livermore, Pittsburgh and Los Alamos, N.M., but they are far from
operational.

The Japanese supercomputer underscores a continuing debate within
the computer design community. One camp has argued for building
massively parallel supercomputers by chaining together thousands
of off-the-shelf microprocessors. That philosophy has come to
dominate designs in the United States in recent years. A second
camp has pushed for computers made from specialized processors
dedicated to solving a particular class of problem.

The vector processors used in the Japanese machine are an example
of the second approach, and they have long been used with great
success for scientific problems ranging from weather prediction
to bomb design.

Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in
Boulder, Colo., said they were planning to work with the Japanese
earth simulation center to convert United States weather modeling
codes to work with the new computer.

"It's potentially quite significant for climate studies," said
Dr. Tim Kalleen, a space scientist who is director of the
American climate research center. He said his researchers were
discussing with their Japanese counterparts the technical details
needed to make sure the advanced American programs will run on
the Japanese machine.

Full at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/20/technology/20COMP.html