Enter this "magical transparent house" that can calculate the sky, the earth, and people, and unlock the door to the future of new productivity

In 2014, the first World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit opened in Wuzhen, Tongxiang, a water town in the south of the Yangtze River. It was also the year when the number of people using mobile phones to access the Internet in my country exceeded that of traditional PCs for the first time.

Ten years have passed, but Wuzhen has never stopped being a hot topic on the Internet. From the initial 5G, to big data, artificial intelligence, to today's trend-setting large-scale models, "Wuzhen by the Water" has transformed into "Wuzhen on the Cloud".

Now, a new technological key has been unlocked here - supercomputing. At the 2021 World Internet Conference, the "Wuzhen Light" supercomputing center was officially completed.

On July 25, the Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Association's "Entering New Productivity" series of science popularization activities entered the "Wuzhen Light" supercomputing center. The Tongxiang Science and Technology Association organized students from the Modern Experimental School. They brought their curiosity and felt the scientific charm of Zhejiang Province's "strongest brain" together with 317,000 netizens.

What is the secret of the province’s only supercomputing center?

Last year, with the National Supercomputing Center in Wuzhen successfully passing the strict acceptance of the Ministry of Science and Technology and being officially included in the sequence of national supercomputing centers, Zhejiang finally had its own national supercomputing center - the only one in the province and the 14th such supercomputing center in the country, filling the gap in Zhejiang in this high-tech field.

When the children walked into the exhibition hall of the National Supercomputing Wuzhen Center with curiosity, it was as if they had stepped into a place where technology and the future meet. Here, the children had a deep understanding of how the supercomputing center built a complete and independent industrial chain and industrial chain around "chip-end-cloud-computing" with chips as the core. From chip design and manufacturing to terminal product development, to cloud data processing and services, every link embodies the hard work and wisdom of scientific researchers. Through intuitive displays, the children felt the power of scientific and technological innovation and its profound impact on modern society.

Afterwards, everyone entered the "Wuzhen Light" supercomputing center, which contains incredible computing power. How fast is it? If 1.4 billion people in the country work together and each person performs one calculation per second, it will take four years without sleep, but these "Wuzhen Lights" can complete it in just one second.

Stepping into the supercomputing center, the computer room is filled with neatly arranged rows of supercomputers. The instructor introduced that "Wuzhen Light" uses the world's leading immersive phase-change liquid cooling technology, which ensures that these high-performance computers can run stably without interruption by immersing components in a special cooling liquid.

So, what exactly can this magical “Light of Wuzhen” supercomputing center calculate?

The teacher explained, "Simply put, it can calculate the sky, the earth, and people." For example, during the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, the Zhejiang Provincial Atmospheric Environment Monitoring, Early Warning and Forecasting Platform used the powerful computing power of the supercomputing center to achieve a leap in forecast accuracy - the smallest unit space for forecasting was improved from the original 16 square kilometers to 1 square kilometer, and the forecast duration was extended from 7 days to 15 days. In addition, the application scope of the supercomputing center also covers artificial intelligence, smart cities, life sciences and other cutting-edge fields, providing strong support for scientific research and social development.

How fast is supercomputing developing in our country?

After visiting the stunning supercomputing center, Mr. Jiang, the operations manager of the Wuzhen Supercomputing Center, gave the children a master class on "supercomputing", unveiling the mystery of supercomputing for them.

What is supercomputing? Teacher Jiang told everyone that a supercomputer, as the name suggests, is actually a computer with extremely strong computing power. It can execute large amounts of data and tasks that ordinary computers or servers cannot handle. The key indicators used to measure supercomputing are not only the computing speed, but also the data storage capacity and system efficiency.

At present, the world's supercomputing centers are mainly distributed in technologically advanced countries and regions, such as the United States, China, Europe and Japan. These regions have strong scientific research capabilities and economic foundations, which can support the construction and operation of supercomputing centers. According to the ranking of the world's top 500 supercomputers, the world's top supercomputer is "Frontier", which was jointly developed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States and AMD.

Since the 21st century, my country's computing field has entered a stage of rapid development and has begun to invest heavily in independent research and development, resulting in the emergence of a number of high-performance computing technologies and products with independent intellectual property rights.

So why are we so invested in supercomputing? What changes can supercomputing bring to our lives?

Supercomputing has a wide range of applications. It can not only play an important role in scientific research and industrial production, but also bring great help to our social services. Today, the "Wuzhen Light" Supercomputing Center has become a strong backing in the field of scientific research, providing powerful computing support for a number of key laboratories including Wuzhen Laboratory, Zhijiang Laboratory, and Nanhu Laboratory, helping researchers to make important breakthroughs in materials science, biomedicine, astrophysics and other fields.

Professor Jiang also shared with everyone the tremendous changes that the development of high-performance computing has brought to the automotive design industry. Through high-performance computing, automotive designers and engineers can simulate and analyze every component and overall performance of the car with unprecedented speed and accuracy, thereby improving design efficiency and quality.

In addition, high-performance computing can also play a huge role in the film and television fields that we are familiar with. Nowadays, many movies use a large number of virtual images to bring unprecedented visual feasts to the audience. However, ordinary computers have limited computing power and are difficult to cope with large-scale data processing and complex rendering requirements. For example, the science fiction movie "Avatar" successfully created a Pandora planet full of strange plants and creatures through the powerful computing power of high-performance computers. Every leaf and every stone on the planet has been carefully rendered, presenting amazing visual effects.

How does supercomputing change our lives?

Application in scientific research

Climate Simulation and Prediction

Use high-performance computers to conduct large-scale climate simulations to improve the accuracy of climate forecasts and provide a scientific basis for addressing global climate change.

"Evolution of Life"

Through high-performance computing, we can conduct in-depth mining of biological big data, reveal the mysteries of life phenomena, and promote the development of biomedical research.

"Astrophysical simulation"

With the help of high-performance computing, we can simulate the movement and evolution of celestial bodies and deepen our understanding of the mysteries of the universe.

·Application in industrial production

「Automobile Design and Simulation」

Use high-performance computing technology to carry out refined design and collision simulation of automobiles to improve their safety performance and R&D efficiency.

Oil Exploration and Development

Through high-performance computing, geological data is processed and analyzed to assist in oil exploration decision-making and reduce development costs.

「New Materials Research and Development」

Use high-performance computing to simulate the structure and properties of new materials, accelerate the research and development cycle of new materials, and promote the advancement of materials science.

Application in social service field

「Smart City Construction」

With the help of high-performance computing, urban operation data can be integrated to optimize urban management and services and improve the quality of life of urban residents.

「Medical and health big data analysis」

Through high-performance computing, massive medical and health data can be mined and analyzed to provide strong support for disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Financial Risk Assessment

Use high-performance computing technology to monitor and analyze financial market data in real time, promptly identify potential risks, and ensure the stable operation of the financial market.

[“Entering the New Productivity” series of popular science activities]

With the rapid development of science and technology, new productivity is reshaping our world at an unprecedented speed. Zhejiang Association for Science and Technology actively responds to the call of the times and strives to create a series of popular science activities called "Entering New Productivity", aiming to deepen the popular science education of young people, relying on Zhejiang Province's unique "315" scientific and technological innovation system and forward-looking "9+6" future industrial layout, leading the public to step into the forefront of science and technology, perceive the charm of science and technology, improve the scientific literacy of the whole people, and jointly draw a blueprint for innovative development.

The 2024 Zhejiang Association for Science and Technology's "Entering New Productivity" series of science popularization activities will build a bridge between the public and cutting-edge technology with rich and diverse scenario-based, experiential, and immersive science popularization forms, and jointly explore the innovative context of eight future industries, including synthetic biology, gene editing, brain science and artificial intelligence, hydrogen energy storage, aerospace information, ground-space integration, metaverse, deep earth and deep sea.