IBM Warns of China Closing the Supercomputer Gap

eldavojohn writes "China is digging a massive hole to house a computer building with the intent of usurping the United States' lead in the field of supercomputing, claims IBM. As of earlier this year, Oak Ridge Lab was beating China's Shenzhen Center. But now, an IBM representative has said to a Washington, DC forum, 'You have sovereign nations making material investments of a tremendous magnitude to basically eat our lunch, eat our collective lunch.' China has long been a contender in this regard, and Europe and Japan have similar goals to build an exascale supercomputer. To achieve this by 2020, the US will need to focus on 'co-design,' where hardware is developed in tandem with every other aspect of the computer, from applications down to optics. This isn't the first time a 'space race' style supercomputing push has been spurred by international competitiveness."

Nuke the site from orbit

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the only way to be sure.

What do they exepect?

[AnonymousClown]

The US doesn't have a monopoly on smart people.

Those countries are sending their best and brightest to US universities to learn. Last I looked, they take the same classes as Americans - at least the Americans who are still studying that stuff.
When you offshore R&D to other countries, you spread knowledge around faster.
Why do I get the feeling the IBM is setting themselves up to receive Government handouts.

Remember the 1980s?

[Anonymous Coward]

I also remember the 1980s supercomputer, artificial intelligence race with Japan. What a load!

Re:What do they exepect?

[WindBourne]

China is loaded with it. WHat they are not doing is spending it on Western companies. GE found that out and is trying to get back in good with the USA. I suspect that IBM is also figuring that out.

Re:To compute what?

[Anonymous Coward]

17.7% of Chinese exports go to the US. If china were to dump a pile of greenbacks, that percent would not go to %0. Maybe it would if DC threw a tantrum and halted all trading, barring that, a 10% hit on exports doesn't seem like an unrecoverable disaster. There's no bag of junk, they just shut down a couple hundred factories, or pull back production 10%. With regards to policy they could do that in a day, because they don't have the debate element found in our two party system. China is going to eat our lunch, and we are just going to watch it happen unless the two parties cooperate better.

Re:To compute what?

[Third Position]

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
--Thomas Jefferson