Tianhe-I
Encyclopedia
Tianhe-I, Tianhe-1, or TH-1 (天河一号) (Mandarin pronunciation:pinyin
: Tiānhé yīhào), in English, "Milky Way (literally, Sky River) Number One", is a supercomputer
capable of an Rmax (maximum range) of 2.566 petaFLOPS
. Located at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, China
, it was the fastest computer in the world from October 2010 to June 2011 and is one of the few Petascale
supercomputers in the world.
In October 2010, an upgraded version of the machine (Tianhe-1A) overtook ORNL
's Jaguar
to become the world's fastest supercomputer, with a peak computing rate of 2.507 petaFLOPS. In June 2011 the Tianhe-1A was overtaken by the K computer
as the world's fastest supercomputer.
Both the original Tianhe-1 and Tianhe-1A use a Linux
-based operating system
.
in Changsha, Hunan
. It was first revealed to the public on 2009, and was immediately ranked as the world's fifth fastest supercomputer in the TOP500
list released at the 2009 Supercomputing Conference
(SC09) held in Portland, Oregon
, on 2009. Tianhe achieved a speed of 563 teraflops
in its first Top 500 test and had a peak performance of 1.2 petaflops. Thus at startup, the system had an efficiency of 46%. Originally, Tianhe-1 was powered by 4,096 Intel Xeon
E5540 processors and 1,024 Intel Xeon E5450 processors, with 5,120 AMD
graphics processing unit
s (GPUs), which were made up of 2,560 dual-GPU ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards.
X5670 processors and 7,168 Nvidia Tesla
M2050 general purpose GPU
s. 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. NVIDIA suggests that it would have taken "50,000 CPUs and twice as much floor space to deliver the same performance using CPUs alone." The current heterogeneous system consumes 4.04 megawatts compared to over 12 megawatts had it been built only with CPUs.
The Tianhe-1A system is composed of 112 computer cabinets, 12 storage cabinets, 6 communications cabinets, and 8 I/O cabinets. Each computer cabinet is composed of four frames, with each frame containing eight blades
, plus a 16-port switching board. Each blade is composed of two computer nodes, with each computer node containing two Xeon X5670 6-core processors and one Nvidia M2050 GPU processor. The system has 3584 total blades containing 7168 GPUs, and 14,336 CPUs, managed by the SLURM
job scheduler. The total disk storage of the systems is 2 Petabytes implemented as a Lustre clustered file system
, and the total memory size of the system is 262 Terabytes.
Another significant reason for the increased performance of the upgraded Tianhe-1A system is the Chinese-designed NUDT custom designed proprietary high-speed interconnect called Arch that runs at 160 Gbps, twice the bandwidth of InfiniBand
.
The supercomputer is installed at the National Supercomputing Center, Tianjin, and is used to carry out computations for petroleum exploration and aircraft design
. It is an "open access" computer, meaning it provides services for other countries. The supercomputer will be available to international clients.
The computer cost $88 million to build. Approximately $20 million is spent annually for electricity and operating expenses. Approximately 200 workers are employed in its operation.
Tianhe-IA was ranked as the world's fastest supercomputer in the TOP500
list until July 2011 when the K computer
overtook it.
| url = http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/29/content_12356478.htm
| title = Defense university builds China's fastest supercomputer
| date = 29 October 2009}}
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
: Tiānhé yīhào), in English, "Milky Way (literally, Sky River) Number One", is a 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...
capable of an Rmax (maximum range) of 2.566 petaFLOPS
FLOPS
In computing, FLOPS is a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating-point calculations, similar to the older, simpler, instructions per second...
. Located at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, 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...
, it was the fastest computer in the world from October 2010 to June 2011 and is one of the few Petascale
Petascale
In computing, petascale refers to a computer system capable of reaching performance in excess of one petaflop, i.e. one quadrillion floating point operations per second. The standard benchmark tool is LINPACK and Top500.org is the organisation which tracks the fastest supercomputers...
supercomputers in the world.
In October 2010, an upgraded version of the machine (Tianhe-1A) overtook ORNL
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a multiprogram science and technology national laboratory managed for the United States Department of Energy by UT-Battelle. ORNL is the DOE's largest science and energy laboratory. ORNL is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near Knoxville...
's Jaguar
Jaguar (computer)
Jaguar is a petascale supercomputer built by Cray at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The massively parallel Jaguar has a peak performance of just over 1,750 teraflops . It has 224,256 x86-based AMD Opteron processor cores, and operates with a version of Linux called the...
to become the world's fastest supercomputer, with a peak computing rate of 2.507 petaFLOPS. In June 2011 the Tianhe-1A was overtaken by the K computer
K computer
The K computer – named for the Japanese word , which stands for 10 quadrillion – is a supercomputer being produced by Fujitsu at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science campus in Kobe, Japan. In June 2011, TOP500 ranked K the world's fastest supercomputer, with a rating...
as the world's fastest supercomputer.
Both the original Tianhe-1 and Tianhe-1A use a Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
-based operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
.
Tianhe-1
Tianhe-1 was developed by the Chinese National University of Defense Technology (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...
in Changsha, Hunan
Hunan
' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting...
. It was first revealed to the public on 2009, and was immediately ranked as the world's fifth fastest supercomputer in 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...
list released at the 2009 Supercomputing Conference
Supercomputing Conference
SC , the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, is the name of the annual conference established in 1988 by the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society...
(SC09) held in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, on 2009. Tianhe achieved a speed of 563 teraflops
FLOPS
In computing, FLOPS is a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating-point calculations, similar to the older, simpler, instructions per second...
in its first Top 500 test and had a peak performance of 1.2 petaflops. Thus at startup, the system had an efficiency of 46%. Originally, Tianhe-1 was powered by 4,096 Intel Xeon
Xeon
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:...
E5540 processors and 1,024 Intel Xeon E5450 processors, with 5,120 AMD
Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets...
graphics processing unit
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
s (GPUs), which were made up of 2,560 dual-GPU ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards.
Tianhe-1A
In October 2010, Tianhe-1A, an upgraded 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 GPU
GPGPU
General-purpose computing on graphics processing units is the technique of using a GPU, which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditionally handled by the CPU...
s. 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. NVIDIA suggests that it would have taken "50,000 CPUs and twice as much floor space to deliver the same performance using CPUs alone." The current heterogeneous system consumes 4.04 megawatts compared to over 12 megawatts had it been built only with CPUs.
The Tianhe-1A system is composed of 112 computer cabinets, 12 storage cabinets, 6 communications cabinets, and 8 I/O cabinets. Each computer cabinet is composed of four frames, with each frame containing eight blades
Blade server
A blade server is a stripped down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Whereas a standard rack-mount server can function with a power cord and network cable, blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power...
, plus a 16-port switching board. Each blade is composed of two computer nodes, with each computer node containing two Xeon X5670 6-core processors and one Nvidia M2050 GPU processor. The system has 3584 total blades containing 7168 GPUs, and 14,336 CPUs, managed by the SLURM
Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management
Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management is an opensource job scheduler used by many of the world's supercomputers and computer clusters. It provides three key functions. First it allocates exclusive and/or non-exclusive access to resources to users for some duration of time so they can...
job scheduler. The total disk storage of the systems is 2 Petabytes implemented as a Lustre clustered file system
Lustre (file system)
Lustre is a massively parallel distributed file system, generally used for large scale cluster computing. The name Lustre is a portmanteau word derived from Linux and cluster...
, and the total memory size of the system is 262 Terabytes.
Another significant reason for the increased performance of the upgraded Tianhe-1A system is the Chinese-designed NUDT custom designed proprietary high-speed interconnect called Arch that runs at 160 Gbps, twice the bandwidth of InfiniBand
InfiniBand
InfiniBand is a switched fabric communications link used in high-performance computing and enterprise data centers. Its features include high throughput, low latency, quality of service and failover, and it is designed to be scalable...
.
The supercomputer is installed at the National Supercomputing Center, Tianjin, and is used to carry out computations for petroleum exploration and aircraft design
Aircraft design process
The term Aircraft design can have many different meanings:*An aircraft design as defined by type definition documentation, such as a type certificate for certified aircraft and as legally defined by the appropriate Airworthiness certificate, including a Standard Airworthiness Certificate for...
. It is an "open access" computer, meaning it provides services for other countries. The supercomputer will be available to international clients.
The computer cost $88 million to build. Approximately $20 million is spent annually for electricity and operating expenses. Approximately 200 workers are employed in its operation.
Tianhe-IA was ranked as the world's fastest supercomputer in 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...
list until July 2011 when the K computer
K computer
The K computer – named for the Japanese word , which stands for 10 quadrillion – is a supercomputer being produced by Fujitsu at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science campus in Kobe, Japan. In June 2011, TOP500 ranked K the world's fastest supercomputer, with a rating...
overtook it.
See also
- HPC Challenge BenchmarkHPC Challenge BenchmarkThe HPC Challenge Benchmark is a set of benchmarks targeting to test multiple attributes that can contribute substantially to the real-world performance of HPC systems, co-sponsored by the DARPA High Productivity Computing Systems program, the United States Department of Energy and the National...
- Supercomputer centers in China
External links
| url = http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/29/content_12356478.htm
| title = Defense university builds China's fastest supercomputer
| date = 29 October 2009}}