The supercomputer Forerunner 1 (創進一號) has officially been launched for deployment in fields that require high-performance computing, including weather forecasts, astrophysics simulations, and engineering design and simulations, the National Center for High-Performance Computing said yesterday.
The center last year began building the next-generation supercomputer at its office in Tainan to replace the Taiwania 1 (台灣杉一號), which has been retired.
Forerunner 1 features 62,496 computing cores, with an overall performance capacity of up to 3.5 petaflops and 9.2 petabytes of storage, the center said.
Photo courtesy of the National Center for High-Performance Computing
For the first time, 40 ARM architecture computing nodes have been installed in the new supercomputer, allowing users to conduct preliminary heterogeneous architecture testing as a reference for the center when it builds new supercomputers in the future, it said.
The center has built supercomputers of different architectures to cope with large-scale scientific and artificial intelligence (AI) projects, it said.
The CPU-based Forerunner 1 is suitable for various high-performance computing tasks, including weather forecasts, astrophysics simulations, molecular model simulations, and engineering design and simulation.
Taiwania 1 was built in 2017 with a performance capacity of 1.7 petaflops, center director-general Chang Chau-lyan (張朝亮) said in a statement.
“With the rapid development of global high-performance computing and artificial intelligence, the improvement of computing power is directly related to the nation’s technological competitiveness,” Chang said.
“The center will gradually establish more powerful computing infrastructure,” he said.
The center is scheduled to complete the construction of 16 petaflops of graphics processing unit-based computing power by the end of this year to meet the needs of AI-related research and application, such as large language models, Chang said.
“We are also aiming to upgrade our computing power to 200 to 300 petaflops by 2028 to further enhance Taiwan’s competitiveness in global technology research and development,” he said.
During the pilot test, Forerunner 1 demonstrated excellent performance in many fields, including astrophysics, fluid mechanics, atmospheric science, high-energy physics and materials computing, the center said.
With the use of Forerunner 1, Academia Sinica’s astrophysics research has increased its computing speed by 5.3 times, while National Chung Hsing University and National Cheng Kung University have significantly increased the scale of fluid dynamics calculations and simulations, reducing the calculation time for billion-level ultra-fine grids from several months to 40 hours, the center said.
The next-generation supercomputer has helped elevate National Taiwan University’s air-sea coupling model test efficiency, which was 80 percent higher than that conducted by Taiwania 3, the center said.
Research on quantum chemistry and materials calculations has also been significantly accelerated, it said.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS