33.86 petaflop/s
The US government has refused to let Intel
help China update the world's biggest
supercomputer.
Intel applied for a licence to export tens of
thousands of chips to update the Tianhe-2
computer.
The Department of Commerce refused,
saying it was concerned about nuclear
research being done with the machine.
Separately, Intel has signed a $200m
(£136m) deal with the US government to
build a massive supercomputer at one of its
national laboratories.
The Tianhe-2 uses 80,000 Intel Xeon chips
to generate a computational capacity of
more than 33 petaflops. A petaflop is equal
to about one quadrillion calculations per
second.
According to the Top 500, an organisation
that monitors supercomputers, the Tianhe-2
has been the world's most powerful machine
for the past 18 months.
This year the Chinese machine was due to
undergo a series of upgrades to boost its
number-crunching abilities past 110
petaflops. The upgrades would depend
largely on new Intel Xeon chips. The
chipmaker informed US authorities of its
involvement with the upgrade programme
and was told to apply for an export licence.
'In compliance'
In a notice published online the US
Department of Commerce said it refused
Intel's application to export the chips for
Tianhe-2 and three other Chinese
supercomputers because the machines were
being used for "nuclear explosive activities".
The relevant section of US export
regulations reveals that this covers
technologies used in the "design,
development or fabrication" of nuclear
weapons.
The notice added that the four institutions
where the supercomputers would be located
were deemed to be "acting contrary to the
national security or foreign policy interests
of the United States".
In a statement given to the IDG news wire,
the chipmaker said: "Intel complied with the
notification and applied for the licence,
which was denied. We are in compliance
with the US law."
China is now believed to be accelerating its
own home-grown chipmaking efforts to
boost the power of the four supercomputers
and complete the upgrade programme.
Although Intel has been denied the chance
to sell its Xeon chips to China, the company
has signed a large deal to build the Aurora
supercomputer at the Argonne National
Laboratory in Illinois. When finished that
machine is expected to have a peak
performance of 180 petaflops.
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