Japan's New Supercomputing Toy 190
deman1985 writes "As reported by UPI, Japan has unveiled their fastest supercomputer yet. Assembled from Hitachi and IBM components, the new system sports total performance around 59 trillion calculations per second and comes at a cool 5-year lease price of $30 million. Pictures of the beast can be found at Mainichi Daily News."
I wonder (Score:1)
Re:I wonder (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I wonder (Score:2)
Re:I wonder (Score:2)
Yes.... (Score:1, Redundant)
*sigh* I miss when that was popular...I was in college, dating a total bitch, living off of ramen, playing CS until my grades started to suffer, and getting four hours of sleep a night...good times, good times.
Re:Yes.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Shit. That's my life right now, and trust me...it ain't good times...
Then again, maybe a few years down the road, when I have a shit job, married to a total bitch, living off of ramen, and still play games till the wee hours in the morning, I'll be able to reflect and think, "yeah...good times...
Re:Yes.... (Score:2)
Beowulf Cluster (Score:1, Redundant)
There, i've said it...you know someone would have!
Fastest? (Score:1)
Re:Fastest? (Score:1)
Yes, Blue Gene/L still reigns supreme.
-WeAz
This contains a BlueGene implementation (Score:1)
Re:This contains a BlueGene implementation (Score:2)
And Yet (Score:1, Troll)
ask public? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd love to see this from top500.org
name,where,how many processors,average FLOPS,max FLOPS,***actually being used FLOPS***
Then sort it based on the latter.
Tom
Re:ask public? (Score:2)
Also, what's the point in having the Hitachi around when the IBM sitting right next to it is 25 times faster?
Re:No project to run on it (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not unusual.
Universities around the world are filled with expensive equipment that doesn't get much use.
What usually happens is that somebody has a vague idea for a research project, applies for a funding grant, but doesn't expect to get it, and then three years down the track the grant gets approved, and you have to buy something that you never expected to get, and you're not sure what to do with it.
Part of my job is
Uses? (Score:2)
And does anyone have an update on the Jap's supersonic jet project? Last story I remember was a model crashing in Australia. Go Japan!
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
Re:Uses? (Score:1)
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
(i kid, i kid)
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
Protein folding, modeling cell machinery, and simulations of other biological systems at the molecular level. Think about the number of calculations involved in modeling the interactions between a few million atoms [lanl.gov] in something as simple as the ribosome. Now imagine adding the water and solute environment that surrounds these sorts of molecules. Oh, you could ignore the water and do the simulation in a vacuum, but let's remember that a driving force in protein conformation is hydropho
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
Re:Uses? (Score:2)
Give it 5 years (Score:1)
Re:Give it 5 years (Score:1)
Re:Give it 5 years (Score:2)
Now with mulit-core processors becoming the norm, and 32 cores per CPU not that far off, it is easy to see that Moore's law is going to keep going strong for at least 5 more years, if not more.
Since these machines are already distributed multi-node systems, a single cpu with 32 cores is going to be generally faster than 32 CPUs in a distributed node configuration.
mod parent insightful! (Score:2)
I suggest size cap on these stats... (Score:1)
Re:I suggest size cap on these stats... (Score:1)
Re:I suggest size cap on these stats... (Score:1)
-naeem
Re:I suggest size cap on these stats... (Score:1)
suggestion (Score:2)
Fastest Supercomputer Yet (Score:2)
How about installing one over at Slashdot HQ?
You guys need it for all the people who keep missing their chance at getting the first post.
teraflops (Score:1)
Re:teraflops (Score:2)
Good point. I live in Mexico, and here "illions" are measured in 10^6 units. So here, a billion is 10^12, a trillion is 10^18, etc.
And actually I don't know how it's handled in different countries, so yes, it's confusing. Using mega,giga,tera is much more specific and doesn't lead to confusions.
Re:teraflops (Score:2)
Re:teraflops (Score:3, Informative)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has an IBM Blue Gene that does 280.6 teraflops or 280.6 trillion calculations a second.
Re:teraflops (Score:2)
I still prefer 59 teracyclops though.
nr 6? (Score:1)
The list [top500.org] is here.
IBM Blue Gene Project (Score:2)
Here are the specs:
http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/deepcomputing/blueg
Yes, it runs Linux!
Using PowerPC processors too (Score:2)
Not particularly powerful CPUs individually, but I guess if you cram enough of them together it adds up.
Re:Using PowerPC processors too (Score:2)
Re:Using PowerPC processors too (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Using PowerPC processors too (Score:2)
If the
Re:IBM Blue Gene Project (Score:2)
slanted? (Score:1)
Is there a design reasons for that (air flow, etc)?
Or is this marketing wanting to be "different"?
Re:slanted? (Score:1)
This thing's not so fast... (Score:2)
Hey, somebody had to say it!
Re:This thing's not so fast... (Score:2)
Re:Ultimate Redudant post (Score:2)
2. Supercomputer are basically BeoWulf clusters
3. Someone else posted the same joke 3 posts up, but included "Will it run linux".
4. It isn't the first time someone has made the mistake of their/they're
5. You aren't the first to point that out to anyone.
6. Somone else will reply to your post and point that out two posts after mine.
7. Someone else in this comment thread will also make misuse of their and they're.
8. Somone two posts down from your original will als
Re:Ultimate Redudant post (Score:2)
No, your ability to use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation is a reflection of your education not just your intelligence level. Try talking with a few people outside the US, which use English as a 3rd language, and you might learn how meaningless your supposed link is.
Re:This thing's not so fast... (Score:2)
My original point still remains.
Proposal (Score:1)
Toy (Score:1)
Its real use (Score:1)
What's happened to the moderation system??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What's happened to the moderation system??? (Score:2)
Re:What's happened to the moderation system??? (Score:3, Insightful)
At least for this thread, I'd say its not the moderation system failing, there just isn't anyone with anything intelligent to say posting anything.
Slashdot posters seem to be the thing cratering.
Articles on IBM throwing together another giant collection of CPU's for someone with money to b
Re:What's happened to the moderation system??? (Score:2)
Is there anything a supercomputer can do that thousands of clustered machines can't? (Honest question)
SB
The silver lining... (Score:2)
Re:What's happened to the moderation system??? (Score:2)
It used to be that browsing at +3, you would get about 10-20% of the total number of comments (e.g. 70-120 comments +3 or higher when total comments = 700). I thought at first (in typical slashdotter fashion) that there was a massive conspiracy of rogue mods who just downmodded at will. But looking at the mod scores, it seems like it's just that there aren't
how long before a singularity? (Score:1)
Given Moore's Law, and given increasing performance gains in computer architecture and new work on algorithms, how likely is it that one of these days one of these machines (or one of their exponentially more powerful progeny) bootstrap themselves into a "Singularity", an AI which at the point of self-awareness becomes almost instantaneously god-like?
I know that this has been the stuff of Science - Fiction wet dreams for decades, but will this old idea - like so many other ideas first found in science-fi
Re:how long before a singularity? (Score:2)
So, intelligence is no more likely to emerge all of a sudden from the lat
Re:Long time for AI, never for "god-like" intellig (Score:2)
Not by much, though. Ray Kurzweil makes a good case [amazon.com] that the price-performance of computers has been doubling in just over a year, and that the rate of change itself is increasing. So, if simulating glial cells require 100 times the computing power of simulating only neurons, then it should be possible in less than seven ye
Re:Long time for AI, never for "god-like" intellig (Score:2)
I'm thoroughly enjoying it. What impressed me the most is that it has less than 500 pages of content, then 200 pages of notes and references. I don't know whether his predictions will be correct, but he certainly makes the raw data that he analyzed available for you to draw your own conclusions.
How do you get it to do what you want?
Well, that's definitely the scary part. It seems quite likely that an entity
Must be good at math... (Score:1)
You don't say. I wonder if they put those numbers into the machine(s) to get that sum...
Off-Topic (Score:2)
Re:Off-Topic (Score:2)
Re:Off-Topic (Score:2)
5-year-lease (Score:2)
That means in five years I'll be able to afford it on my desktop for about what I make an hour.
Woohoo!
I hope it comes with a better mouse. I have one of those mechanical ones, and it keeps getting granola in it.
Re:5-year-lease (Score:2)
Like the name... KEK (Score:4, Funny)
Geekdom (Score:1)
NOT a Toy! (Score:2)
Now if you'll excuse me, my aimbots need seeing to.
Slashdotted (Score:2)
2006 supercomputer = ten teraflops (Score:2)
Apple will use this in their next Mac Mini (Score:2)
yeah but (Score:2)
it's filled with Jawas! (Score:2)
A few minor details (Score:2)
Re:A few minor details (Score:2)
Just imagine... (Score:2)
Clarification (Score:2)
How About Some Stats I Can Understand? (Score:2)
How many football fields does it cover?
I need some stats I can relate to!
Re:How About Some Stats I Can Understand? (Score:2)
It's faster than the Quantum Optical Laptop [slashdot.org]
And it requires a nuclear power plant to supply the power.
Not really faster than Earth simulator (Score:2)
Furthermore, scaling most codes to the tens of thousands of processors of a blue
Supercomputer Accessories (Score:2)
Rumor has it... (Score:2)
Sound Familiar (Score:2)
Ter(r)a (Score:2)
[OT] Mainichi Shinbun (Score:2)
Yes, but (Score:2)
yes, but... (Score:2)
Micropayment options? (Score:2)
Re:Mainichi daily news? (Score:2)
Re:Dull boring boxes (Score:2)
Re:What happens to them (Score:2)
Many of these needs can be met very well with commodity hardware based cluster machines (which is what this machine sounds like - more