Sunway, the Chinese super computer with 19.2 million cores
By Jayden Ditchy11/08/20233 Mins Read
Its name is Sunway, and it has a whopping 19.2 million cores. Let’s see what else we know about him so far and how this beast of technology would be built.
Sunway, the Chinese super computer
During 2019 and 2020, the Asian market had many problems due to restrictions by the US, being the case that companies like Huawei had to stop the development of chips, thus making it impossible to develop competitive processors for the market or for they.However, one company, Jiangnan Computing Lab, which develops Sunway processors, and the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi continued to build new supercomputers until they reached the point where we are today, introducing the world to a beast.
What is known about this super computer is that it has 19.2 million cores on 49,230 nodes, which seems unreal to us, since today the largest in the world has 9,472 nodes and consumes 21 MW of power, which to give you an idea, is about 3,000 euros spent every hour. That is, if this new equipment contains about 5 times more nodes… we prefer not to know its consumption, which has not been disclosed, since the cost per hour could be crazy.
*The most powerful in the world so far
Although this would also be associated with its performance, which could be a revolution for the world, since nothing like it has ever been seen and we don’t know how far its potential could go.
In addition, it seems to be based on the well-known processor Sunway 390 core which comes from Sunway SW26010 CPUs, which have already been around since 2021. Thus, the new system increased the number of processors, but not their architectural efficiency, so its power consumption is likely to be gigantic, more so than the expected.
This equipment would have been developed at first with the aim of solving a problem to address compressible currents in turbomachinery through simulations of large eddies, thus responding to a problem that NASA would have posed.
This would require a machine so powerful that it would not have been capable yet, so we don’t know if this new model would have succeeded or fallen short. They have not wanted to reveal power or consumption data which makes us think that it has still been a bit of a failure, although we believe that even so, we would be talking about an incredible achievement and that it will surely have many uses in the future.
These machines do not stop surprising us, especially if we think about how many common computers like the one you have in your house are necessary to achieve the power of just one of these. Although hey, seeing that they consume around 3,000 euros per hour of light, you can get the idea…
Sunway, the Chinese super computer with 19.2 million cores - Gearrice
Sunway, A Chinese Supercomputer With 19.2 Million Cores (nationworldnews.com)
