China's R&D investment 2nd in the world

[beijingwalker]

Innovation: Where innovation lies | The Economist

China steps up semiconductor game

y Larry Dignan , ZDNet US on October 31, 2011


Summary

China using domestic chips for its latest supercomputer as it relies less on U.S. players such as Intel, Nvidia and AMD and becomes a potential competitor.
Topics

industries, china, electronics sector, semiconductor manufacturing, technology sector, manufacturing sector, audio, video, and imaging chip manufacturing, supercomputers, computer technology, science and technology

China is stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing efforts and using domestic chips for its latest supercomputer. It's going to be interesting to see how fast China can close in on U.S. supercomputer processor makers Intel, AMD and Nvidia.

The New York Times reported that a supercomputer called Sunway BlueLight MPP, was installed in September at the National Supercomputer Center in Jinan, China. The details emerged at a technical meeting. The real catch is that China used 8,700 ShenWei SW1600 chips.

Those semiconductors are homegrown and indicate that China is aiming to be a major chip player. The New York Times story was mostly sourced to Jack Dongarra, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee, but Chinese sites reported on the technical meeting. Dongarra helps manage the list of Top 500 supercomputers. China's previous supercomputers used Intel and Nvidia chips.

 

[beijingwalker]

Innovation: Where innovation lies | The Economist

Where are the world's most innovative companies and what do they do?

Companies that make semiconductors and other electronic components are collectively the most innovative industry, according to an analysis of patents carried out by Thomson Reuters, an information-services provider. Its "Top 100 Global Innovators" report rates companies by the proportion of their patent applications that are granted; the number of "quadrilateral" patents (those granted in China, Europe, Japan and America); how often patents are cited by other companies; and whether patents relate to new techniques or inventions or are refinements of existing ones. This approach is intended to overcome the limitations of using the number of patents filed or granted as a measure of innovation. Of the 100 companies in the list, which is not ranked and relates to patent activity from 2005-2010, 40 are from America, 27 from Japan and 11 from France. No Chinese companies qualified. The report says this "underscores the fact that although China is leading the world in patent volume, quantity does not equate to influence and quality."

I dont know how they gauge the innovation index,but the truth is,semiconductor and superconductor research industry develop so fast in China,in terms of growth and development,China beats all other countries and it is getting close to the very top.

China surges up Top500 supercomputer rankings
By Jack Clark, 14 November, 2011 17:47

The latest rankings in the Top500 list of supercomputers have come out, with China making its presence felt, as the leaders stay put in their top spots.

The latest biannual list of the world's most powerful supercomputers was released on Monday at the SC11 conference in Seattle. Japan widened its lead at the top with the Fujitsu-designed K Computer attaining an Rmax score of 10.5 petaflops, according to the Linpack benchmark, versus the 2.5 petaflops of the Chinese Tianhe-1a. However none of the top 10 leaders changed position.

"This is the first time since we began publishing the list back in 1993 that the top 10 systems showed no turnover," Erich Strohmair, an editor of the Top500 list, said in a statement.

Below the top 10 there is a change underway as China continues its technical ascendancy. The country now has 74 systems in the Top500, putting it second overall after the US's 263. This is up from 61 systems in June, 41 in November 2010, 25 In June 2010 and 21 in November 2009.

A high ranking in the list does not necessarily reflect a country's technical prowess, as governments may have simply assembled their systems from technologies built by companies based in other countries. Nvidia, Intel and AMD, for instance, dominate the list in terms of processors, and they are all US businesses.

China is trying to change this. More and more Chinese systems use domestically developed processors or interconnect technologies. China's most powerful computer, the Tianhe-1a, gets the bulk of its processing power from 7,168 Nvidia Tesla GPUs and 14,336 Intel CPUs, but it also gets some of its technical prowess from 2,048 FT1000 heterogeneous processors developed by the country's National University for Defence Technology (NUDT).

Another example is the list's 14th most powerful computer, the Chinese Sunway BlueLight MPP, which uses the Chinese-developed RISC-based SheinWei SW1600 processor to attain an Rmax performance of 800 teraflops.

More and more Chinese systems built with domestic technology seem set to appear in the list. The country is developing a petaflop supercomputer named the Dawning 6000 that will get its processing power from Chinese Loongson processors.

In a wider sense, the country has vowed to develop an exascale computer — a system at least 100 times more powerful than the K Computer — by the end of the decade and hopes to use many of its own technologies in the system, weaning it from dependence on companies like Nvidia and Intel.

 

[skyisthelimit]

i think you mean chinese. looking for reflected glory are we? Your country is not particularly liked by chinese I would say.

well, we all have differences....still we all live together as neighbours, do business exceeding 50 billion $ and still growing further.... just because i congratulated China and praised for the glory of asians (including pakistan) in 21st century does not mean they need to like us.... it was a compliment meaning, after europe and americas....asians are next in line for growth and prosperous future of their people.