超級計算機之爭 中國力壓美國

SAN FRANCISCO — A new list of the world’s fastest supercomputers provides more evidence that the once-yawning technology gap between the United States and China is closing.

舊金山——全球最快超級計算機的最新排名榜提供了進一步的證據，表明美國和中國之間曾經懸殊的技術差距正在縮小。

China dominates a biannual ranking of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers, called the Top500, that was published on Monday. Not only does China have the world’s fastest machine for the seventh consecutive time, it has the largest number of computers among the top 500 — a first for any country other than the United States.

“全球最快超級計算機500強”(Top500)每兩年更新一次，最新榜單于本週一發佈。中國不僅連續第七次成爲世界上最快計算機的擁有者，而且打入500強的數量也是最多的——這是第一次有美國以外的國家做到這一點。

Also for the first time, the world’s fastest supercomputer uses Chinese-made microprocessor chips instead of chips from Silicon Valley’s Intel.

而且這也是第一次，全球最快的超級計算機使用了中國製造的微處理器芯片，而不是來自硅谷英特爾(Intel)的芯片。

Supercomputers are viewed in scientific circles as an indicator of national technology leadership, and they are vital for research in areas ranging from the development of new weapons and medicines, to the design of cars and consumer products. American computing experts and business executives have warned for years that leadership in supercomputing is vital to a range of national interests.

在科學界，超級計算機被視爲一個國家技術領先地位的指標，從新型武器和藥品研發，到汽車和消費類產品的設計，超級計算機都發揮着非常重要的作用。多年來，美國計算專家和企業高管們都警告說，在超級計算機領域的領軍地位對國家的很多利益至關重要。

“Today even consumer detergent bottles are designed with supercomputers,” said Eric D. Isaacs, a physicist and provost of the University of Chicago. “The Chinese are getting good at building these computers, and it’s a competitive issue now for U.S. industry and national security.”

“今天，甚至連民用洗滌劑的瓶子都是用超級計算機設計的，”芝加哥大學物理學家、教務長埃裏克·D·艾薩克斯(Eric D. Isaacs)說。“中國越來越善於建造這些計算機，現在對美國的產業和國家安全來說，這成了一個競爭力的問題。”

The United States primacy on the Top500 list has slipped for a number of reasons. Government support for supercomputing has been slowed by long-running debates on the level of federal spending on basic scientific research, as well as opposition to funding for industrial innovation that is not directly related to national security.

美國在500強名單上失去領頭羊地位的原因有很多。政府在聯邦層面的基礎科學研究投入長期存在爭論，而且一些人反對政府資助那些與國家安全沒有直接關係的產業創新，所以政府對超級計算的支持已經有所放緩。

In the private sector, companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon invested billions of dollars in cloud-computing centers that don’t focus as much on solving scientific problems.

在私營部門，像谷歌、微軟、Facebook和亞馬遜這樣的公司投入了數以十億計的美元在雲計算中心上，而解決科學問題並不是雲服務的側重點。

And last year, the United States blocked the sale of a number of advanced microprocessors to China over concerns they were being used in nuclear weapon development, which most likely accelerated the development of China’s own technology, said Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer scientist who helped create the list of the world’s fastest computers in 1993.

去年，美國封鎖了一些先進微處理器對中國的出口，擔心中國利用它們發展核武器，田納西大學(University of Tennessee)的計算機科學家傑克·唐加拉(Jack Dongarra)說，這些處理器極有可能用來加快中國的自主技術研發。他曾在1993年參與創建最初的全球最快計算機榜單。

The Top500 list is maintained by Dr. Dongarra and Erich Strohmaier, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Individual computing centers report descriptions and performance to them twice a year.

這個500強榜單是由唐加拉和勞倫斯伯克利國家實驗室(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)的物理學家埃裏希·施特羅邁爾(Erich Strohmaier)共同維護的。各計算中心每兩年向他們彙報一次情況和性能。

In 2001, there were no Chinese supercomputers on the Top500. Now, China has 167 systems on the list compared to 165 from the United States. China also leads a more obscure category — total processing power, or the combined computing speeds of all of its supercomputers on the list.

2001年時，500強名單中沒有任何超級計算機來自中國。而現在，名單上有167座超級計算機來自中國，165座來自美國。而且中國在一個比較偏僻的類別中也處於領先地位——總處理能力，即一個國家所有上榜的超級計算機加總後的速度。

The fastest machine, the Sunway TaihuLight System, was installed this year at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, in China’s Jiangsu province.

最快的計算機名爲“神威·太湖之光”，是今年在江蘇省無錫的國家超級計算中心安裝的。

Despite those achievements, Intel still provided the chips for 91 percent of the machines on the list. And China is still catching up with the United States in state-of-the-art technologies, like software and the networking that links the thousands of chips in a modern supercomputer.

儘管取得了這些成就，但上榜計算機中91%的芯片仍來自英特爾。中國的頂尖技術，如軟件和連接現代超級計算機中數以千計的芯片的網絡，依然落後於美國。

But that could soon change. Officials at the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group, said the Chinese government has an ambitious $150 billion program to acquire as well as develop new technologies in various kinds of chips.

但這種情況可能很快就會發生改變。行業組織半導體行業協會(Semiconductor Industry Association)稱，中國政府制定了一個野心勃勃的計劃，打算投入1500億美元購買和開發各類芯片的新技術。

After years of neglect, the United States does appear to be taking the competitive threat seriously, said John Neuffer, president of the S.I.A. “It’s an opportunity for us to double down on supercomputing and get ourselves back on track,” he said.

該協會的主席約翰·諾伊弗(John Neuffer)表示，多年忽視此事的美國似乎的確很重視這個競爭威脅。“這是我們在超級計算上加倍投入，重振旗鼓的機會，”他說。

Last year, the Obama administration began a new effort to develop a so-called “exascale” supercomputer that would be 10 times faster than today’s fastest supercomputers. (An exaflop is a quintillion — one million trillion — mathematical instructions a second.) Computer scientists have argued that such machines will allow more definitive answers on crucial questions such as the danger posed by climate change.

去年，奧巴馬政府啓動了一個新項目，內容是開發所謂的“艾級”超級計算機。這種計算機的速度將是當今最快的超級計算機的十倍。（一艾次指一秒鐘內執行一百億億條數學指令。）計算機專家稱，這種計算機能夠對氣候變化帶來的危險等關鍵問題給出更明確的答案。

Until President Obama signed the National Strategic Computing Initiative last July, the construction of the fastest American supercomputers had largely been driven by the nation’s Stockpile Stewardship and Management program, which was created in 1995 to simulate the testing and maintenance of nuclear weapons.

在奧巴馬總統去年7月簽署國家戰略計算計劃(National Strategic Computing Initiative)之前，建造美國最快的超級計算機的工作主要由美國核武儲備管理計劃(Stockpile Stewardship and Management)推動。該計劃1995年啓動，旨在模擬核武器的測試和維護。

While the Chinese have perfected the manufacture of traditional supercomputers pioneered by American companies like IBM and Cray, the United States may focus on new, more efficient supercomputers that might lead to machines intended for challenges like artificial intelligence, according to Larry Smarr, a physicist who directs the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at the University of California, San Diego.

中國完善了IBM和克雷(Cray)等美國公司開創的傳統超級計算機的生產，然而美國現在的側重點可能是效率更高的新型超級計算機。據加州大學聖迭戈分校加州通信與信息技術研究所(California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at the University of California, San Diego)所長拉里·斯馬(Larry Smarr)介紹，這種超級計算機可能會催生專門應對人工智能等挑戰的計算機。

One of the design challenges of the fastest computers is their vast power consumption. The world’s fastest supercomputer in China, which could fill a large warehouse, requires the same electric power needed to run roughly 15,000 homes. An exascale supercomputer will very likely require more than twice that amount of power, or roughly the amount of power produced by the Copper Mountain Solar Facility, the largest producer of solar power in the United States.

最快的計算機面臨的一個設計挑戰在於它們巨大的功耗。中國那臺全世界運行速度最快的超級計算機的體積相當於一個大倉庫，用電量大致相當於1.5萬戶家庭。艾級超級計算機的用電量很有可能是它的兩倍多，或者說相當於美國最大的太陽能發電設施銅山太陽能項目(Copper Mountain Solar Facility)的發電量。

At the same time, even if the United States is able to design an exascale computer within the next decade, the Chinese could get there first. According to Dr. Dongarra, the Chinese government is committed to reaching the exascale goal by the end of this decade.

與此同時，即便美國能在十年內設計出艾級計算機，中國可能會率先實現這個目標。據唐加拉稱，中國政府致力於在這個十年結束前達到艾級計算。

Because of funding shortages and technology challenges, “there has been a delay in getting the exascale launched in the U.S., and as a result, we’re further behind than we should be,” he said.

因爲資金不足和技術挑戰，“美國製造艾級計算機的計劃出現延誤，因此，我們進一步落後於本應該達到的水平，”他說。

The Sunway supercomputer in Wuxi is a marvel of Chinese manufacturing prowess, Dr. Dongorra noted. The computer is based on 10.6 million processor “cores” spread across 40,960 microprocessors that work together. The chips are relatively slow individually — about the speed of the processor in Apple’s iPhone 6.

唐加拉稱，無錫的超級計算機神威是中國製造實力的象徵。該計算機的基礎分佈在40960個微處理器上的1060萬個處理器“核”。這些芯片單獨運行時速度相對較慢，大約相當於蘋果iPhone 6的處理器速度。

The Sunway machine does have its shortcomings. It has older memory-chip technology, meaning it is limited in the speed with which it can move data in and out of each processor when compared with the most powerful American supercomputers. And the new Chinese supercomputer is still based on American-made optical network technology that is used to connect the thousands of microprocessor chips.

神威也有自己的缺點。它的存儲芯片技術較老，這意味着和最強大的美國超級計算機相比，它的各處理器數據交換速度有限。同時，中國的新型超級計算機仍建立在美國開發的光網絡技術上。該技術被用於連接成千上萬的微處理器芯片。

Despite the fact that the Chinese now have the most supercomputers on the list, the United States still dominates the top 20, with 10 machines. There are now 105 supercomputers in Europe. Japan has 29 systems on the list, down from 37 systems in November.

儘管中國上榜的超級計算機最多，但排名前二十的超級計算機仍以美國的爲主，佔了10臺。歐洲現在有105臺超計算機。名單上日本的超級計算機從11月的37臺降至現在的29臺。

Several American scientists compared what is going on now to the 1980s, when they worried that the nation was losing ground to Japanese supercomputers.

幾名美國科學家將目前的情況比作上世紀80年代。那時，他們擔心在超級計算機領域，美國正在輸給日本。

“Scientists might be saying, ‘I have to go to China to run my computations,’” said Dr. Smarr.

“科學家可能會說，‘我不得不去中國運行我的計算，”斯馬說。