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> The partnership with the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker was a game changer for China, which has long been unable to match the U.S.’s supercomputing powe
by mappu 7y ago
> The partnership with the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker was a game changer for China, which has long been unable to match the U.S.’s supercomputing power because of its inferior chips, one product the country has so far struggled to master.
Author forgot about Sunway TaihuLight, the top supercomputer in the TOP500 at the time the transfer happened, using a completely domestic CPU architecture.
> The AMD deal gave China access to state-of-the-art x86chips, which are made by only two companies in the world: AMD and Intel Corp.
Author forgot about Zhaoxin. The new LuJiaZui in particular is really interesting.
- est 7y ago> Sunway TaihuLight, the top supercomputer in the TOP500 It can be traced back to DEC's ALPHA chips.
- jl2718 7y agoInteresting. Almost all leading-edge US chip designs have a piece of their pedigree I can trace from the engineers that worked on the Alpha in that Littleton, MA facility. Did Sunway hire their people or just copy their designs?
- fps_doug 7y agoI wouldn't say that invalidates their achievements though. It's not like they took a 20+ year old architecture, built it on 14nm to bump up clock speed and were done. Improving something existing still requires you to thoroughly understand the technology. There wouldn't really have been a point in starting completely from scratch (why not even reinvent electricity while you're at it), other than some additional street cred.
- chithanh 7y agoI think only the older Sunway (SW1600) chips use Alpha ISA, and not the design. The ones in the TaihuLight (SW26010) are not Alpha. Similar to Loongson, which used the MIPS ISA, but a homegrown design.