Iran Builds Supercomputer From Banned AMD Parts 778
Stony Stevenson writes with the news that, despite a ban on US PC hardware, Iranian techs have built an enormously powerful supercomputer from 216 AMD processors. The Linux-cluster machine has a 'theoretical peak performance of 860 gig-flops'. "The disclosure, made in an undated posting on [the University of] Amirkabir's Web site, brought an immediate response Monday from AMD, which said it has never authorized shipments of products either directly or indirectly to Iran or any other embargoed country."
Doesn't make the top 500... (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, the article mentions at the end that it falls far behind the rest of the world. In fact, to make the Top 500 this year you had to have a supercomputer worthy of 5.9 Teraflops.
Re:Oh well. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh well. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Oh well. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:'Banned'? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Informative)
Google the news on Iran and that latest CIA report that says Iran stopped pursuing nuclear weapons in 2003. Guess what you'll find -- the EU, France, Germany and others basically saying the U.S. intelligence is flawed and Iran is a much greater nuclear threat than that report states.
France and Germany are pushing for harsher sanctions than the U.N. ones. They want separate EU sanctions on Iran, and still call their nuclear program "a threat".
The Middle East nations all are fearful of Iran as is, and terrified of them having nuclear weapons. Arabs != Persians.
Re:They are the Boogeymen! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They are the Boogeymen! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cause for concern (Score:1, Informative)
Iran has vowed to annihilate Israel, which is an (undeclared) nuclear power.
That's actually not true (vowing to annihilate Israel). This misconception started from a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that was translated incorrectly by the BBC. It has been translated correctly afterwards, but the BBC (and 99% of western media which gladly jumped on their story) never apologized and straightened the mistake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad#Anti-Israel_statements [wikipedia.org]
I'm not saying he's a nice guy though.
Re:Cause for concern (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cause for concern (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They are the Boogeymen! (Score:3, Informative)
Thank you. That "wipe off the map" quote was deliberate translation disinformation, folks.
Re:Bomb design is trivial... (Score:2, Informative)
I think the problem of the massive infrastructure needed to create weapons grade fissionables and the use of supercomputers to model weapon designs goes hand-in-hand. If a nation has limited fissionable material available, they're going to want to build the most efficient design possible. Though most current US weapons were designed before the era of modern computing, the US had the luxury of data gathered from hundreds of atmospheric and underground tests to apply to those designs; a luxury which states like Iran obviously don't have. Sure, Iran doesn't need a bomb that can fit in a suitcase, but if they were pursuing nuclear weapons, they would want a weapon that doesn't waste a huge amount of fissile material and had some chance of fitting in a realistic delivery system, and a Fat Man copy isn't it.
Is it possible to build an efficient, relatively compact (i.e. deliverable by cruise or ballistic missile or by fighter aircraft) weapon with no access to live test data and only modern consumer-grade computing power? Probably, but a supercomputer would make things quite a bit easier.
Re:They are the Boogeymen! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh well. (Score:3, Informative)
Why would Judaism, with circa 14 million adherents, be considered one of "the 3 major religions" while excluding Hinduism with circa 900 million adherents as a major religion [adherents.com]?
what was life like in Iran before the revolution? (Score:2, Informative)
So, sure, things have gotten worse now, a theocracy is basically the worst case scenario for forms of government, but the point I'm trying to make is that the Shah was set up by the US, UK, and the CIA, and was responsible for some pretty awful stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax [wikipedia.org]
So let's recap: The US ran a covert operation and overthrew a democratically elected prime minister, to protect US interests (read: Oil companies). The guy the put in turns out to be fond of things like arbitrary arrest/detention and torture, so after the Iranian people threw him out on his ass, what the fuck do Americans expect Iranians to think of Americans?
And, were it any other country, most of us on slashdot would be saying that the Shah DESERVED to be overthrown. We may not like the successor, but let's not pretend that the Shah and his government didn't have it coming.
Re:They are the Boogeymen! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:It's not design, it is testing (Score:4, Informative)
However supercomputers have now progressed to the point that you can actually TEST a bomb all in software.
This is inaccurate.
The basic nuclear design tools are finite element modeling and Monte Carlo simulations. With larger and larger number of elements modeled, you can get more and more accurate simulations in the same timeframe, so that the model has closer and closer resemblance to experimental reality. You also need some baseline data; some of that is declassified, some can be obtained experimentally on smaller scale using neutron beams, lasers, and high explosives. But the most important data on the high efficiency yield properties, and the algorithmic optimizations allowing rapid and detailed simulations, remain classified.
Even with a supercomputer design, without an actual test, you can't be sure your extrapolations and simulations will be as good as you hope. Getting a nuclear explosion isn't the real challenge; it's making one that's efficient. (This may have been North Korea's problem; sub-kiloton yields can result if you make a mistake.) However, a good computer lets you get a better idea of the sorts design variants you want to play with before you go risking your very expensively obtained fissionables on a test explosion.
But basic work and a rough model once you have the basic materials data? Two days on the HP-49 calculator, including programming time. A 7x7x7 element model gives you numbers that will be within 10% of the final... which does translate into an order of magnitude difference in possible yield, but anything from 1 to 100 kilotons still gets attention.