Tianhe-2 was banned from buying insiders: The United States is jealous of China's supercomputing power

Tianhe-2, which has ranked first in the world in the top 500 supercomputers for four consecutive years, has recently encountered trouble with system upgrades, and the U.S. Department of Commerce has imposed an embargo on Intel's XEON chips that it plans to use to upgrade computing power this year.

On April 9, the U.S. Department of Commerce released a report deciding to reject Intel's application to sell Xeon chips to China's National Supercomputing Guangzhou Center for the upgrade of the Tianhe-2 system. Four national supercomputing centers, the National Supercomputing Center Changsha Center, the Guangzhou Center, the Tianjin Center and the National University of Defense Technology, are included in the export control list.

The reason for the sudden Xeon chip embargo was given by the United States as to the explanation that these four Chinese supercomputing centers were engaged in activities that "violated" U.S. national security or foreign policy interests. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a notice on February 18 this year saying that the Tianhe-2 and earlier Tianhe-1A systems, which used two Intel microprocessor chips, were "believed to be used for nuclear explosion simulation."

The United States found "nuclear-related" excuses to embargo chips

"Tianhe System was licensed by the U.S. government when it purchased Intel chips, and now it feels threatened for various reasons, so it finds a nuclear-related excuse to terminate a normal business activity." Lu Yutong, a professor at the National University of Defense Science and Technology and chief designer of Tianhe-2, said at the special forum on "The Impact of Chip Sales Restrictions on our country's supercomputing" held by the China Computer Society.

In November 2014, at the World Supercomputer Conference held in New Orleans, USA, Tianhe-2 ranked first in the world in the supercomputer high-performance test ranking officially released by the international TOP500 organization for the first time. Previously, in the 44th World Supercomputer 500 ranking released by the organization, Tianhe-2 topped the list with a peak computing speed of 549 billion times per second and a continuous computing speed of 339 million times per second, winning the "four consecutive championships".

It is reported that Tianhe-2 uses 32,000 "Xeon" processors and 48,000 "XeonPhi" coprocessors. In a test last year, Tianhe-2 reached a peak computing speed of 549 million times per second. This year, Tianhe-2 plans to upgrade its computing power from 55PFLOPS to 100PFLOPS (PFLOPS is the abbreviation of peta flops, the computing speed of 10 to the power of 15 times per second).

Lu Yutong said that the realization route of the Tianhe system is to meet the needs of general field applications as the ultimate goal, and the embargo that does not abide by the business rules will have a negative impact on the upgrade of Tianhe-2, but from the perspective of the overall upgrade, the benefits must outweigh the disadvantages.

Regarding the U.S. chip embargo, Zhang Yunquan, a researcher at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that the four consecutive championships and upgrades of Tianhe-2 are one of the triggers for the embargo. The development of China's supercomputing ranks among the top three in the world, threatening the position of the United States in supercomputing. After nearly 10 years of rapid development, China's supercomputing now has the potential to compete with the United States and Japan at the overall level.

"This is a good thing, it is conducive to losing illusions, as long as the Chinese lose their illusions, any miracle on earth can be created." Hu Weiwu, a researcher at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and head of Loongson series processors, believes that it is necessary to be accustomed to the US chip embargo, and it is normal for US exports to be approved, but this time it is not approved.

It is understood that domestic supercomputing centers mainly rely on server manufacturers to provide Xeon and other related chips, and the latest ban means that they cannot sell servers equipped with Xeon chips to these supercomputing centers. An executive of a server manufacturer who requested anonymity told Sina Technology that servers equipped with Xeon chips are mainly for enterprises and other customers, and the ban will not have an impact on the company's performance.

The embargo will stimulate the industrialization of domestic chips

Regarding the impact of the US chip embargo on China's supercomputing, Zhang Yunquan, a researcher at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that China should be more active in developing its own domestic high-performance processors and supercomputing systems.

The National Supercomputing Guangzhou Center issued a statement on April 17 on the US embargo on chips, saying that the U.S. Department of Commerce's implementation of export restrictions will greatly stimulate the industrialization of our country's domestic chips and the deployment of domestic supercomputing systems. According to the original contract plan, the first phase of the "Tianhe-2" system has 4,096 nodes using the "Feiteng 1500" chip, which currently has the highest frequency in China, and the effect is good.

Up to now, the contractor has completed the expansion of the "Tianhe-2" computing array and the upgrade of the high-speed communication interconnection system. As far as the existing computing resources are concerned, "Tianhe-2" will still be in the top 10 of the Top500 for at least the next 5 years, which can fully meet the needs of the majority of users.

"The independent controllability of chips and basic software is part of the national strategy, and the National University of Defense Science and Technology has been striving to achieve independent controllability in the development of high-performance computers." Lu Yutong, a professor at the National University of Defense Science and Technology and chief designer of Tianhe-2, said that the development of high-performance computers in our country will actively respond to various challenges, and the upgrade goal of the Tianhe-2 system is within a controllable range.

Hu Weiwu, a researcher at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and head of the Loongson series processors, believes that "to change the current situation that China's IT industry is controlled by others, it is necessary to establish an independent and controllable information industry system if it does not work by relying on one or two trusted technologies or one or two products." ”

Experts call on the state to enact an anti-embargo law

For the chip embargo imposed by the United States, Hu Weiwu, the head of the Loongson series processor and a deputy to the National People's Congress, called for coordinating with other deputies to propose anti-embargo legislation, and foreign manufacturers with embargoes need to be reviewed for ten years after the ban is lifted and will not be sold.

"If foreign manufacturers are not allowed to come in ten years after the embargo is lifted, it will do a good job in the marketization of domestic high-performance chips." In Hu Weiwu's view, the anti-embargo law can allow domestic chip manufacturers to dare to invest in research and development after the chip embargo occurs, and will not let domestic chips be tossed in vain because of the lifting of the ban on foreign embargoed manufacturers.

Coincidentally, in March this year, the China Computer Society (CCF) submitted the "Proposal of the China Computer Society on the Formulation of the Anti-Embargo Law" to the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council.

The "Proposal" points out that Western countries, represented by the United States, pursue and implement export controls and embargoes on China's goods, services and technology, which greatly harms our country's national interests, industrial interests and the rights and interests of consumers. Especially when our country's scientific and technological personnel independently develop embargoed equipment, technology and software, the United States and other countries often immediately lift the ban on such products and technologies and dump them on our country.

The China Computer Society recommends that relevant departments formulate the "Anti-Embargo Law" as soon as possible, and stipulate that after the successful research and development of equipment, equipment, technology and software in the our country, the our country shall not import or impose high tariffs and other countermeasures, so as to protect the national interests, national industry interests and the enthusiasm of scientific and technological personnel in our country.

The development of domestic supercomputing lies in application

"The embargo on US chips, for Tianhe System, I personally think that there is no need to do more interpretation of this matter, and more time to pay attention to how to do a good job in the application of supercomputers." Lu Yutong said that supercomputers need to be applied in general fields to support basic scientific research and promote technological innovation.

At the same time, she suggested that the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China can set up a supercomputing application project, and a fixed part of the cost will be allocated to the major supercomputing centers, and all applicants for the National 863 or National Natural Science Foundation of China projects can apply for free when they need to use supercomputing for calculation and processing. Only through such a method can the National Supercomputing Center have the opportunity for sustainable development.

At the same time, Zhang Yunquan, a researcher at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, suggested the establishment of several national engineering centers for parallel software to coordinate the research, development, promotion and application of parallel software in various industries across the country. The eight national supercomputing centers that have been established should be included in the infrastructure scope of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and continuous financial support should be given to give full play to their long-term benefits.

Hu Weiwu, a researcher at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and head of the Loongson series processors, believes that China needs a public welfare high-performance supercomputer, which the state will pay for to operate, maintain and use, and allow professors from major universities to use it for free to conduct scientific research.