National Supercomputing Center of Tianjin
Encyclopedia
The National Supercomputing Center of Tianjin is located at the National Defense Science and Technology University in Tianjin
, China
. The currently the second fastest supercomputer
in the world (see "The TOP500
Project" list of supercomputers), Tianhe-1A
, is located at the facility.
system. As the National Supercomputing Center, the facilities came under the direction (purview) of the National Supercomputing Center council, consisting of members of the National Defense Science and Technology University, the various departments of the Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Zone
, and the Tianjin Binhai New Area Administrative Committee. The facilities have been used by various people through the Beijing and Tianjin area. The center was built with the purpose of encouraging and initiating technological development and scientific innovation in the Tianjin Binhai New Area. Plans include both commercial and military interests. It was built to fulfill three primary objectives:
A commercial affiliate of the Tianjin center had previously made the PHPC100 "personal supercomputer" in 2008 which was about twice the size of a normal desktop computer, but had 40 times the speed. In 2010 a second generation model was released.
X5670 processors and 7,168 Nvidia Tesla
M2050 general purpose GPUs. 2,048 NUDT
FT1000 heterogeneous processors are also installed in the system, but their computing power was not counted into the machine's official Linpack
statistics as of October 2010. Tianhe-1A has a theoretical peak performance of 4.701 petaflops.
It is used to carry out computations for petroleum exploration and aircraft simulation
. It is an "open access" computer meaning it provides services for other countries.
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
, China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
. The currently the second fastest supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
in the world (see "The TOP500
TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year...
Project" list of supercomputers), Tianhe-1A
Tianhe-I
Tianhe-I, Tianhe-1, or TH-1 , in English, "Milky Way Number One", is a supercomputer capable of an Rmax of 2.566 petaFLOPS...
, is located at the facility.
History
The Tianjin Computer Institute had been active as far back as 1984 and had developed the 16-bit TQ-0671 microcomputerMicrocomputer
A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...
system. As the National Supercomputing Center, the facilities came under the direction (purview) of the National Supercomputing Center council, consisting of members of the National Defense Science and Technology University, the various departments of the Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Zone
Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area
Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area , commonly abbreviated as TEDA is the main free market zone in Tanggu District in Tianjin, China. It was formed in late 1984 and currently has more foreign businesses in it than all of Shanghai....
, and the Tianjin Binhai New Area Administrative Committee. The facilities have been used by various people through the Beijing and Tianjin area. The center was built with the purpose of encouraging and initiating technological development and scientific innovation in the Tianjin Binhai New Area. Plans include both commercial and military interests. It was built to fulfill three primary objectives:
A commercial affiliate of the Tianjin center had previously made the PHPC100 "personal supercomputer" in 2008 which was about twice the size of a normal desktop computer, but had 40 times the speed. In 2010 a second generation model was released.
Tianhe-1A
In October 2010, Tianhe-1A, a separate supercomputer, was unveiled at HPC 2010 China. It is now equipped with 14,336 XeonXeon
The Xeon is a brand of multiprocessing- or multi-socket-capable x86 microprocessors from Intel Corporation targeted at the non-consumer server, workstation and embedded system markets.-Overview:...
X5670 processors and 7,168 Nvidia Tesla
Nvidia Tesla
The Tesla graphics processing unit is nVidia's third brand of GPUs. It is based on high-end GPUs from the G80 , as well as the Quadro lineup. Tesla is nVidia's first dedicated General Purpose GPU...
M2050 general purpose GPUs. 2,048 NUDT
National University of Defense Technology
National University of Defense Technology is a comprehensive national key university based in Changsha, Hunan Province, China.It is under the dual supervision of the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Education, designated for Project 211 and Project 985, the two national plans for...
FT1000 heterogeneous processors are also installed in the system, but their computing power was not counted into the machine's official Linpack
LINPACK
LINPACK is a software library for performing numerical linear algebra on digital computers. It was written in Fortran by Jack Dongarra, Jim Bunch, Cleve Moler, and Gilbert Stewart, and was intended for use on supercomputers in the 1970s and early 1980s...
statistics as of October 2010. Tianhe-1A has a theoretical peak performance of 4.701 petaflops.
It is used to carry out computations for petroleum exploration and aircraft simulation
Flight simulator
A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and various aspects of the flight environment. This includes the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they react to applications of their controls and other aircraft systems, and how they react to the external...
. It is an "open access" computer meaning it provides services for other countries.
See also
- Supercomputer centers in ChinaSupercomputing in ChinaThe People's Republic of China operates a number of supercomputer centers which hold world records in speed.The origins of these centers go back to 1989, when the State Planning Commission, the State Science and Technology Commission and the World Bank jointly launched a project to develop...