From "following" to "leading"! 27 years ago today, my country successfully developed the Galaxy-III supercomputer

On June 19, 1997, the "Galaxy-III" parallel supercomputer developed by the National University of Defense Technology passed the national appraisal in Beijing. The machine adopts a distributed shared storage structure, is oriented to large-scale scientific and engineering calculations and large-scale data processing, has a basic word length of 64 bits, and a peak performance of 13 billion times. The machine has many leading technologies in China, and its comprehensive technology has reached the current international advanced level. At present, only a few developed countries in the world have mastered the development technology of high-performance supercomputers. The successful development of the "Galaxy-III" supercomputer has enabled China to enter the ranks of the world's advanced countries in this field.

China's supercomputer development achieves a "zero" breakthrough

In the 1970s, high-performance computing became a strategic high technology to promote scientific and technological innovation and economic and social development. However, due to the lack of its own supercomputers, China is often controlled by others in its economic and social development. The data of mineral and oil exploration must be sent abroad for processing, which is not only expensive, but also the data must first be mastered by foreign experts.

"China cannot do without supercomputers if it wants to achieve the four modernizations!" Comrade Deng Xiaoping made a resounding statement at an important meeting held by the Central Committee in 1978. It was at this meeting that my country decided to independently develop supercomputers to solve large-scale scientific computing problems in modernization construction. Comrade Deng Xiaoping solemnly entrusted this important task to the National University of Defense Technology.

At that time, although the National University of Defense Technology was the first unit in China to develop computers, the "151" computer it had developed previously had a computing speed of only 1 million times per second. Now, to develop a machine that can calculate over 100 million times per second means that the computing speed must be increased 100 times. The technical difficulty can be imagined.

"Win glory for the Chinese nation!" Faced with unprecedented difficulties, the researchers were determined to build a giant computer even if it meant risking their lives, so that foreigners would not strangle us. After the development work began, various complex technical problems emerged. What technical route should be taken? What system structure should be adopted? How to achieve a computing speed of 100 million times per second... Problems were like "roadblocks". The researchers faced the challenges head-on, treated the laboratory as a battlefield, and fought this battle without gunpowder day and night.

At the beginning of reform and opening up, my country's industrial foundation was weak, processing equipment was rudimentary, and components were backward. Under such conditions, the difficulty of designing a giant computer was obvious. Researchers recalled that, for example, when designing computer hardware circuits, they simply drew them one by one on paper. If they made a mistake, they had to start over. It took half a month to draw a small-scale integrated circuit design.

In order to catch up with the progress, everyone ate in the factory, slept in the computer room, and worked until at least 12 o'clock at night. At that time, overtime pay was 20 cents a night, but no one was willing to take it. Everyone wanted to save every penny and build China's giant machine as soon as possible.

After five years of hard work day and night, scientific researchers represented by Academician Ci Yungui overcame one theoretical, technical and technological difficulty after another, and creatively proposed the "dual vector array" structure, which greatly improved the machine's computing speed. The development task was completed one year ahead of schedule, and the funds used were only one-fifth of the original plan.

On November 26, 1983, my country's first supercomputer capable of performing 100 million operations per second successfully passed the national technical appraisal, marking a "zero" breakthrough in the development of supercomputers, making China the first country after the United States and Japan to independently design and manufacture supercomputers.

Since then, they have relied on independent innovation to successively develop a series of giant computers such as "Galaxy-II" and "Galaxy-III", gradually pushing my country's high-performance computer development technology to the international forefront, and gradually solving a series of imminent problems in economic and social development.

Get weather forecast about 7 days in advance

In March 1994, amid fierce market competition, the "Galaxy-III" project was officially launched. It took more than three years to successfully develop it in June 1997, achieving a leap from a multi-processing parallel supercomputer to a large-scale parallel processing supercomputer. The machine adopts a distributed shared storage structure, is oriented to large-scale scientific and engineering calculations and large-scale data processing, has a basic word length of 64 bits, and a peak performance of 13 billion times.

On June 19, 1997, after the successful development of the Galaxy III with a computing speed of 13 billion times per second, the China Meteorological Administration used it to develop a medium- and long-term numerical forecast system, advancing the weather forecast from two or three days in advance to about seven days in advance. The comprehensive technology of this system has reached the current international advanced level, and has broken through and mastered the key technologies of higher-level computers, and has the ability to develop higher-performance supercomputers, which marks a new breakthrough in my country's high-performance supercomputer development technology.

The "Galaxy" supercomputer system was the fastest, largest storage capacity and most powerful electronic computer in my country at that time. The "Galaxy" series of supercomputers are now widely used in weather forecasting, aerodynamic experiments, engineering physics, oil exploration, seismic data processing, satellite image processing, large scientific research calculations, national defense construction and other fields, generating huge economic and social benefits.

At present, only a few countries are able to develop giant electronic computers. The successful development of the "Galaxy" computer achieved the goal proposed by the National Science Conference two years ahead of schedule that "my country's super-high-speed giant computers will be put into use by 1985", making my country one of the countries in the world that develops giant computers.

China's supercomputer development level ranks among the best in the world

After entering the new century, my country's various undertakings entered a period of rapid development, and there was a more urgent need for the computing speed and capacity of high-performance computers. However, compared with developed countries, my country is not only an order of magnitude behind in computing power, but also far behind in the number of installed computers. The National University of Defense Technology was once again entrusted with the important task of climbing the world's technological peak - to develop my country's petaflop supercomputer system as soon as possible.

The development of supercomputers around the world shows that every order of magnitude increase in computing power requires innovation in architecture and breakthroughs in a series of key technologies. At that time, although the National University of Defense Technology had relatively strong technical accumulation and rich engineering practice experience, it was also difficult to achieve the technological leap from exascale to petaflop.

Faced with multiple technical difficulties and severe challenges, scientific researchers work together, innovate independently, and strive to master core key technologies to promote the development of my country's high-performance computing industry.

The secret of the Tianhe supercomputer's fastest computing performance in the world lies in its original "CPU + GPU" heterogeneous architecture. However, this new heterogeneous system encountered a series of major technical bottlenecks during its creation. Professor Yang Canqun, deputy chief designer of the Tianhe supercomputer, recalled that the GPU is characterized by graphics and video processing. It is not only difficult to program it and combine it with the CPU, which is good at computing, to perform calculations, but also the computing efficiency is very low. The highest computing efficiency recognized internationally is only 20%.

The key to innovation lies in how to turn "impossible" into "possible" and to make a way where there is no way. In order for a supercomputer system to achieve a trillion operations per second, it must also have a fast and unobstructed network system to allow all kinds of information to "run fast". The research team of the National University of Defense Technology did not believe in evil. They insisted on taking their own design route, exploring from scratch, and working hard to solve problems. In just 10 months, a new type of switch was developed, and the measured technical indicators greatly exceeded similar systems, while the cost was only 80% of similar products of the same scale.

With a series of key technological breakthroughs and engineering achievements, on October 29, 2009, my country's first exascale supercomputer "Tianhe-1" was successfully developed, realizing the leap of my country's independently developed supercomputer capabilities from one trillion times to one petaflop, making China the second country in the world after the United States capable of developing a petaflop supercomputer system.