Supercomputing in China

It is unlikely that China will use the IBM System p575 purchased to aid weather forecasting in advance and during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing for weapons development after the Olympics due to the country's ability to domestically produce machines that run atfaster speeds.

In 2004, Dawning Information Industry, a Chinese computer manufacturer, completed its 4000A supercomputer, which, according to Top500, an organization which recognizes the world's most powerful computers semiannually, was the tenth fastest machine in June 2004 with a maximum operational speed of 11.2 teraflops compared to 9.8 teraflops for the IBM System p575. A teraflop is a measure of computing speed equal to one trillion floating point operations per second.

In August 2007, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau (BMB) purchased the IBM System p575 supercomputer specifically for weather forecasting at the 2008 games. The system is capable of analyzing information from a 44,000 square kilometer (about 17,000 square mile) area to provide hourly weather forecasts for each square kilometer. The 80-node, 9.8 teraflop machine is reportedly ten times faster than BMB's current forecasting supercomputer and 1,000 times faster than the computer used during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

IBM announced it received the necessary regulatory approvals for the sale of the computer which cost several million dollars and the BMB intends to use the computer to forecast rain, pollution, wind speed, air quality and humidity. Sin Jisong, chief forecaster at BMB, claimed that weather is very unpredictable in Beijing and IBM researcher Zaphiris Christidis reported that the system will be the most advanced one ever used by an Olympic host.

Although the Chinese army has acknowledged that western computing technology is critical for its weapon modernization program, it is likely Dawning or another organization can build the machine domestically with certain foreign components. For example, Dawning's 4000A used the 64-bit Opteron processors made by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). When asked if China could use the computer for military applications, technology trend author Michael Kanellos responded, "Sure. But these chips fall within the export regulations as permissible. You can make a notebook [computer] with them, too." An AMD public relations official, Dave Kroll, said the agreement between his company the Chinese company specifically stipulates non-military uses for the machine.

There is a history of China defense organizations acquiring US-made supercomputers. In 1997, Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, reported US-based Silicon Graphics, Inc sold a supercomputer to the Chinese Academy of Sciences without an export license, which, in turn, China used to help develop the country's long-range missiles. The same company reportedly sold systems to a nuclear laboratory