[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.