What high-performance computers can do

What can be done: 1. Numerical simulation of cosmic neutrinos and dark matter to reveal the evolution process of the universe; or you can also simulate the time process and accelerate the simulation process to model and model the evolution of celestial bodies. Theoretical experiment. 2. Establish a mathematical model of nuclear explosions and deeply understand the principles of nuclear explosions to serve the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons; or predict when nuclear weapons will fail and which parts need to be replaced. 3. Accurately simulate and observe cloud movements to achieve climate simulation and weather forecasting. 4. Simulate earthquakes to help humans explore earthquake prediction methods, thereby mitigating risks related to earthquakes.

The operating environment of this tutorial: Windows 7 system, Dell G3 computer.

High-performance computers (HPC, also known as supercomputers) are mainly used to solve challenging problems that cannot be solved by other computers. They usually refer to computers with extremely fast computing speed, huge storage capacity, and extremely high communication bandwidth. Computer-like. High-performance computing is regarded as the "crown" of computer science and engineering, and countries have frequently launched research and development plans at the national level in recent years.

High-performance computers are computers with the most powerful functions, fastest computing speed, and largest storage capacity. They are mostly used in national high-tech fields and cutting-edge technology research. They are a reflection of a country’s scientific research strength. It has great influence on National security, economic and social development are of pivotal significance. It is an important symbol of the country's scientific and technological development level and comprehensive national strength.

High-performance computers are computers that can perform large amounts of data and high-speed operations that ordinary personal computers cannot handle. Its basic components are not much different from the concept of a personal computer, but its specifications and performance are much more powerful. It is a super-large electronic computer. It has strong computing and data processing capabilities. Its main features are high speed and large capacity. It is equipped with a variety of external and peripheral devices and rich, high-function software systems. Most of the existing supercomputers can operate at a speed of more than one tera time per second.

As an element of high-tech development, high-performance computers have long become a competitive tool for the economy and national defense of countries around the world. After decades of unremitting efforts by Chinese scientific and technological workers, China's high-performance computer research and development level has improved significantly, becoming the third largest high-performance computer developer and producer after the United States and Japan. China currently has 22 supercomputers (19 in mainland China, 1 in Hong Kong, and 2 in Taiwan), ranking second in the world. It leads the world in terms of ownership and computing speed. With the speed of supercomputers With the rapid development, it is also increasingly used in industry, scientific research and academic fields. However, in terms of the application field of high-performance computers, there is still a big gap between China and developed countries such as the United States and Germany. The development of China's high-performance computers and their applications provides a solid foundation and guarantee for China to become a technological power.

Uses of high-performance computers

1. Revealing the evolution of the universe

The international team for numerical simulation of cosmic neutrinos, led by Chinese scientists, successfully completed a numerical simulation of cosmic neutrinos and dark matter with 30 trillion particles on the "Tianhe-2" supercomputer system, revealing that The long evolution process of 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang 16 million years later. Neutrinos are one of the most fundamental types of particles in nature. They have no charge and act very quickly. Currently, the absolute mass of neutrinos cannot be measured through physical experiments and cosmological observations. Neutrinos could inhibit the formation of galaxies and large-scale structures in the early universe. The latter can be indirectly measured through large-scale cosmological numerical simulations to obtain neutrino mass information. Such large-scale cosmological numerical simulations must rely on supercomputers with powerful computing and storage capabilities.

It is also possible to simulate the time process and accelerate the process of the simulation to conduct modeling and theoretical experiments on the evolution of celestial bodies.

2. Simulated nuclear test

The top 500 supercomputers are Titan and Sequoia in the United States. They are affiliated with the U.S. Department of Energy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Supercomputing applications based on them involve the development and security maintenance of nuclear weapons. Based on the data of 1,054 U.S. nuclear tests from 1945 to 1992, a supercomputer was used to establish a mathematical model of nuclear explosions, which provided a profound understanding of the principles of nuclear explosions and served the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons; a large number of nuclear weapons are approaching the end of their service life. , supercomputer simulations can be used to predict when they will fail and which parts will need to be replaced.

3. Climate simulation and weather forecast

This supercomputing application won the China Gordon Bell Prize and is called "Global Non-static Cloud Resolution Simulation". The project is oriented toward climate and meteorological research. Weather forecasting requires real-time processing, storage, query, analysis and statistics of massive meteorological data. It would take hundreds of years to calculate with an ordinary computer. For example, rainfall is closely related to the movement of clouds. The movement of clouds can be accurately simulated and observed using supercomputers. As the computing speed of supercomputers increases, the accuracy of observations continues to decrease. If we could "tag" every cloud in the future, weather forecasting would be fine.

4. Earthquake simulation

Super computers can simulate earthquakes. It simulates crustal movement by calculating stress changes in different strata. For example, Chinese and German scientists used Tianhe-2 to simulate real seismic wave propagation and reproduced the Rand seismic wave propagation process of the 1992 Rand earthquake in California, USA, providing a new way to study the generation and propagation mechanism of seismic waves and earthquake prediction.

The simulation of earthquakes can help humans explore earthquake prediction methods, thereby mitigating the risks associated with earthquakes.

5. Oil exploration

Supercomputers can also calculate where oil wells should be drilled. At present, seismic exploration is an important means of exploring oil and gas resources before drilling. The so-called seismic exploration is to use the elasticity difference and density difference of underground media to observe and analyze the earth's response to artificially excited seismic waves, infer the nature and shape of underground strata, and thereby determine the accurate distribution of oil and gas. This process requires intensive calculation and simulation of massive data, and the calculation results need to be converted into intuitive three-dimensional images, so it must be achieved with the help of high-performance computers.

6. Tsunami hazard prediction

Japanese scientists used the supercomputer "Beijing" to establish a tsunami simulation model and successfully predicted the damage caused by tsunami after the earthquake. . The results show that in the event of an earthquake in Miyagi Prefecture, the flood area in Sendai City can be predicted within 10 minutes. If this technology is promoted, it will improve the accuracy of tsunami warnings and guide residents to evacuate more effectively. Tsunami disaster simulation requires a large amount of time and takes a long time, making it difficult to perform real-time disaster analysis. During the "3.11" earthquake in Japan, the predicted tsunami wave height was lower than the actual height.

7. Precision Medicine

Precision medicine is medical treatment and treatment tailored for each person. It is not only a medical field, but also related to computing power. closely related. Genetic differences determine individual differences. There are 3 billion base pairs in a person's genome waiting for scientists to analyze, taking into account information such as people's living habits and external environment. But this is not enough. We would need genetic data from at least millions of people to form a database so that we could analyze the relationship between genetic differences and various health problems and thus "treat" people. All of this requires significant computing power to process.

8. Drug development

With the help of the supercomputer "Beijing", scientists have successfully developed new anti-cancer drugs. The researchers focused their research on proteins that play an important role in cancer cell proliferation, and used this special protein as a breakthrough to use supercomputer simulations to calculate chemicals that can effectively inhibit cancer cell proliferation. In general, calculating the binding of this cancer cell-specific protein to potentially effective drugs and its effect on body water is extremely complex, necessitating precise simulation experiments with the help of supercomputers.

9. Simulated blood flow

The total length of human blood vessels is 100,000 to 160,000 kilometers. Without supercomputers, it would be nearly impossible to simulate the flow of blood in blood vessels in real time. US scientists have successfully replicated the entire human arterial system using a supercomputer. Any artery larger than 1 mm in diameter appears in the 3D model with a resolution of 9 microns. Chinese scientists are also using the "Taihu Divine Power Lantern" to simulate and analyze human blood flow. This can promptly and effectively determine whether a person is at risk of cerebral infarction without placing a measuring device in the blood vessel. In addition to simulating blood flow, supercomputers can also model the heart, brain and other parts of the body.

10. Transportation industry

Supercomputers can be used to understand and improve the aerodynamics, fuel consumption, structural design, and collision avoidance of vehicles such as cars, airplanes, or ships, and help improve Occupant comfort, noise reduction, etc., all have potential economic and safety benefits.

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