China is targeting its latest supercomputer, the Shuguang, which is about 50% faster than the fastest supercomputers currently in the US, according to SCMP. This development aims to regain the No. 1 position lost in 2018 to the US, ending 5 years of China at the top of the list.
The newspaper said that this next-generation Chinese supercomputer will be transferred to the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing to enter the Top 500 fastest global computer rankings.
The ability to produce modern supercomputers is an important measure of the technical capacity of any country, as they are widely deployed for tasks, from weather forecasting to modeling ocean flows, energy technology and simulating nuclear explosions. The demand for supercomputers in commercial applications is also increasing due to the development of artificial intelligence.
In 2015, then-US President Barack Obama signed an executive decree allowing the establishment of the National Strategic Computer initiative (NSCI) to accelerate the development of exascale computing technology for supercomputers and finance the next-generation computer development projects of the current semiconductor generation. Exascale is a term for supercomputers capable of calculating 1 billion cubic meters/second.
China and the US dominate the fastest supercomputer sector in the world, accounting for 45.4% and 21.8% globally, respectively. The next countries are Japan (6.2%) and the UK (4%) - according to the Top 500 ranking released last November.
Supercomputer competition between the US and China is also reflected in the trade war between the two countries, especially since China accelerated in this field.
China began making non-semiconductor supercomputers in the US after President Obama's administration banned the sale of Intel, Nvidia and AMD high-end chips to Chinese supercomputers in 2015.
Just 1 year later, China launched the Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer running on a domestically developed Linux operating system and a self-developed Chinese chip called the Matrix-2000. This computer made it into the Top 500 and became the fastest supercomputer in the world in 2016.
Although the US is a major competitor and has tried to curb China, internal demand for supercomputing capabilities forces China to address issues by developing independently, SCMP quoted Cao Zhongxiong, CEO of new technology research at the China Development Research Institute, based in Shenzhen, as saying.
The National marine science and technology laboratory of Taizhou, the National Supercomputer Center of Tianjin and the National Super computer Center of Shenzhen are expected to complete upgrading exascale computers in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively. These supercomputers can perform calculations many times faster than Summit, the leading machine in the US.
