Make Full Use of Tianhe to Serve the Society

As China’s first world champion of supercomputer, Tianhe-1 has been a powerful tool of scientific and technological innovation in China. Every time I see its achievements, I am so proud of the choice I made.

Eleven years ago, I became a member of the newly established National SuperComputer Center in Tianjin. Living in cramped conditions, six or seven persons ate, slept and worked in a two-bedroom apartmen.

At the beginning of the deployment and R&D test of Tianhe-1supercomputer system, we transformed the computer room and installed cables and machine cabinets during the daytime, and we were on duty at nighttime. R&D test was carried out day and night. In that summer, there was no air conditioning in the room covering over 1,000 square meters, and mosquitoes were everywhere. We lay in cardboard boxes on the floor, when we are tired. With such hard conditions, we accomplished the installation and deployment in seven months, which would take a year or even more for others.

Someone asks what’s the motivation? A sense of responsibility, a sense of commitment and a passion for innovation and breakthrough might be the answer. We are so excited for any words to build the first national supercomputer center.

After Tianhe-1 makes breakthrough in performance, speed is no longer a problem, and application is the key to competition. As the head of Applied R&D Department, my team and I have been successively responsible for the development of the first large-scale heterogeneous parallel simulation software of fusion energy, and the R&D of the integrated platform for data processing of oil and gas exploration. Nowadays, Tianhe-1 runs more than 8,000 computing tasks of scientific research every day.

Besides, Tianhe supercomputer also plays an important role in production and life.

For enterprises, it can reduce costs and improve efficiency through simulation. For example, the companies developing cars and automobile equipment will make collision tests with real cars. These cars are produced separately rather than in batch, with long time and high cost. With the help of the Tianhe-1 simulation platform, the physical collision is simulated by digital cars, which greatly shortens the development period of products and saves the expenses of R&D.

Personally speaking, the most ordinary application is the weather forecast. The weather forecast we see on TV and smart phone relies on supercomputer. Tianhe-1 focuses on precipitation and extreme weather in summer, and forecasts wind and snow in winter. After getting data from satellites and meteorological stations, Tianhe-1 can calculate weather changes in the future.

There is no end to innovation. In the future, we should work hard continuously to make Tianhe provide more powerful support for national indigenous IT innovation and economic and social development.

(This report is written by director of Applied R&D Department of National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin and sorted by reporter Gong Xiangjuan.)