Preliminary research work on China’s new-generation exascale supercomputer “Tianhe III” is progressing smoothly, reported the official Xinhua News Agency on February 16. Exascale computers can conduct at least a billion billion calculations per second. The supercomputer’s verification system is expected to complete key breakthroughs in areas including high-performance chips and Internet technology this year, laying the foundation for the subsequent research and development on the “Tianhe III” system.
“Tianhe I - China’s first petascale supercomputer - has been in use for nearly seven years, and is close to saturation now. A larger-scale replacement is called for,” Liu Guangming, director of the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin (NSCC-TJ) told Xinhua. Tianhe I is the world's most utilized supercomputer; it has been running at full capacity - over 1,400 computing tasks every day - making it self-sufficient in terms of financing.
The development work on a “Tianhe III” prototype, jointly launched by NSCC-TJ and the National Defense Science and Technology University, has been started, reported Xinhua. The supercomputer’s most prominent characteristic is that it’s fully independently developed by China, including the chips, operating system and running and computing environment.
The “Tianhe III” prototype is expected to be deployed in late 2017 or early 2018. When the test performance proves stable, the fully-fledged super computer system will be deployed – by around 2020.
“Tianhe III” will, according to plans, have a floating-point computing capacity 200 times that of “Tianhe I,” and what’s more important is the technological breakthroughs, like significantly improved bulk density. The supercomputer is also likely to be located in Tianjin, so as to take advantage of the team operating "Tianhe I." Tianhe II is located in Guangzhou.
When “Tianhe III” goes into operation, the resulting annual economic benefits are expected to exceed 10 billion yuan (US$ 1.5 billion).
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