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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JULY 28, 2003; VOL. 2 NO. 30
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Special Features:
INTEL POWERS NETWORK CENTER OF
CHINESE STATE GRID
The Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences (CAS) and Lenovo (Holdings) Co., Ltd. recently reached an agreement
by which Lenovo, with the guidance of the National 863 Project, will work
with CNIC to build for CAS a powerful High Performance Computing (HPC) 256-
node cluster system powered by 1,024 new Itanium 2 processors. The systems
will be the major equipment for the main node of State Grid, a key project in
China's national 863 Project. The research is also a key part of CAS'
supercomputing environment development effort in its tenth 5- year information
computerization plan.
This is the first time that a local Chinese computer manufacturer has
gotten
involved in building a high performance computer for scientific research at
the national level. It is an important milestone in the development of HPC in
China.
The CAS Network Center cluster is designed to offer high-performance
computing
resources to nationwide science research institutes and universities. With the
newly added Itanium 2 systems and installed solutions on Intel Xeon
processor, Intel-based servers and workstations now form the backbone of the
computing hub at CAS Network Center.
"Moore's Law has dramatically enhanced the performance of Intel-based
computing platform, and continues to lead the way of technology innovation,"
said Ian Yang, general manager of Intel (China) Co., Ltd. "Intel Itanium 2
processor-based platforms are architected for demanding enterprise and
technical applications, with scalability and floating-point execution
capabilities that make them ideal for academic and scientific research
computing. We are seeing more and more of the world's leading research
organizations enjoying the price/performance and lower total cost of ownership
(TCO) advantages of open standards-based Intel platforms.. We are proud to be
contributing to the efforts of researchers in China and other parts of the
world."
Yang Yuanqin, President of Lenovo Ltd said:" We at Lenovo appreciate the
trust
of CAS. With our high sense of responsibility and customer-orientation, we
will build the HPC system as soon as possible. Levono has been increasing our
investment in R&D. The successful build-up of the Lenovo Teraflop system is
very important to China's HPC industry. Lenovo will work closely with Intel on
the system for CAS and towards the development of HPC in China."
Intel and HPC
Intel's Itanium processor family features industry record-setting integer
and
floating-point performance, superior bandwidth performance and large-scale
dataset support to fully address the demands of scientific research. Many of
the world's leading research organizations have deployed Itanium-based
systems, including The US National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA), Cornell Theory Center and European Organization for Nuclear Research
(CERN) and in China, Beijing Normal University, Tsinghua University, Wuhan
University and Zhejiang University.
Selected by CAS Network Center as the cornerstone for building national 863
Grid project, Intel Itanium 2 processor again proves the vitality of Intel
Architecture.
High performance technical computing was one of the first market segments
to
begin embracing the power and affordability of Itanium-based solutions. It is
also fast moving from its academic and research origins into mainstream
business usage. Today, more than one-third of the world's most powerful
computers running on Intel processors are in commercial use including Daqing
Oilfield, China Petrochemical and Natural Gas, Sinopec, China Offshore Oil;
and international names like BP and DaimlerChrysler.
The list of the world's 500 most powerful computers, issued at
www.top500.org
and in conjunction with the International Supercomputer Conference in
Heidelberg, Germany last month, reveals that Intel-based systems on the elite
TOP500 list totaled 119, more than double the 56 systems on the list only six
months ago, and up dramatically from just three on the list three years ago.
Nineteen Intel Itanium family-based systems appeared on the list, up from
two last time. In addition, systems with as few as 92 Intel processors are
appearing on the list for the first time. These are some of the smallest and
most affordable systems to ever make the list delivering better performance at
a lower cost vs. many proprietary systems.
The Intel Itanium 2 processor family also broke into the top 10 for the
first time. An HP system in use at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
in Richland, Wash. secured the eighth position on the list.
Grid computing takes the HPC philosophy and extends it by linking desktops,
clusters and large symmetric multiprocessing systems across multiple
geographic locations - creating a single, virtual computing resource. This
enables the integrated, collaborative use of high-end computing systems,
networks, data archives and scientific instruments that are operated and
accessed by multiple organizations.
About Intel
Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of
computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about
Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.
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