China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer

歌曲 China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer
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[00:00.00] From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.79] this is the Technology Report.
[00:05.68] China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer
[00:09.53] has just been rated No. 1 on the top 500
[00:14.74] -- a respected list of the world's most powerful computers.
[00:20.31] Experts measured the supercomputer's performance
[00:24.59] at 33.86 petaflop or quadrillion of operations per second.
[00:34.21] China's National University of Defense Technology
[00:38.58] developed the supercomputer, which runs twice
[00:42.77] as fast as the No.2 rated Titan supercomputer.
[00:48.16] It belongs to the United States Government's
[00:51.80] Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
[00:55.43] Both Tianhe-2 and Titan are part of an ongoing race
[01:01.28] to make supercomputers faster and more powerful.
[01:06.27] So what is a supercomputer?
[01:10.02] A basic personal computer has one microchip
[01:14.79] at the center of its operations.
[01:17.00] This Central Processing Unit, or CPU,
[01:22.18] executes a set of commands contained in a predesigned program.
[01:28.25] The first supercomputers had a few more CPUs.
[01:33.63] That number grew as microprocessors
[01:36.91] became cheaper and faster.
[01:39.74] Andrew Grimshaw, a computer science professor
[01:43.42] at the University of Virginia explains:
[01:47.00] "Today, supercomputers are all what we call parallel machines.
[01:50.55] Instead of one CPU - central processing unit
[01:53.63] - they have thousands and thousands.
[01:55.46] And in the case of the Chinese machine,
[01:57.35] depending on how you count,
[01:58.91] millions of the central processing units."
[02:01.34] These parallel machines are made up of
[02:04.32] many individual computers called nodes.
[02:08.30] They are all positioned in one block.
[02:11.75] They used a lot of power, create a lot of heat,
[02:16.82] and require huge cooling systems.
[02:20.45] They also use programs different
[02:23.69] from those used by ordinary computers.
[02:27.31] Professor Grimshaw says anyone with enough resources
[02:31.75] can build a supercomputer to solve problems
[02:35.97] that require millions of mathematical calculations.
[02:40.61] But that's not always necessary.
[02:44.29] A virtual supercomputer can be created
[02:47.82] by networking individual computers
[02:50.76] within a university campus or company.
[02:54.35] These machines then process data during down time,
[02:59.06] when no one is using them.
[03:01.41] "Those are very easy to run on virtual supercomputers
[03:05.20] because each problem is independent of all the others
[03:08.19] and I can scatter these jobs out all around the place.
[03:10.98] We run these all the time at UVA."
[03:12.81] Professor Grimshaw says that entire ten years ago,
[03:16.79] engineers worked on making computers faster.
[03:20.77] Since then, he says, they have worked to create
[03:25.21] more powerful parallel machines.
[03:27.70] "It's transforming science and engineering,
[03:30.19] and it's going to continue to transform it
[03:32.10] in ways I think most people don't fully grasp
[03:36.52] - how well we can model and simulate the world now."
[03:39.86] Professor Grimshaw says
[03:41.69] the increasing computing ability of supercomputers
[03:45.34] makes the future of research very bright.
[03:49.62] And that's the Technology Report from VOA Learning English.