The Race to Build the World’s Fastest Supercomputers | WSJ U.S. vs. China

Published 2022-08-31
The U.S. supercomputer Frontier was crowned the world’s speediest this year, but some computer scientists say China‘s Tianhe-3 may be as fast. WSJ unpacks the tech and design of the machines as the two countries race to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.

Photo illustration: Sharon Shi

U.S. vs. China
This original video series explores the rivalry between the two superpowers’ competing efforts to develop the technologies that are reshaping our world.

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All Comments (21)
  • @adonisvan4328
    Let these two compete in tech race that can benefit the human race, not an army race that can destroy humanity
  • the first computer was the size of a house imagine what this would look like in 20 years lol
  • "the compute node is basically like your personal computer" Pulls out my PC with 8 GPUS and 2 CPUS
  • @CengalLut
    Americans blocked Chinese access to the best chips, then act surprised when Chinese researchers stop collaborating with them on computing research.
  • @tonysu8860
    Although it might be interesting how the Tianhe 3 might perform, I'm at least as interested in the SUNWAY TAIHULIGHT which although was #1 when it was first submitted in 2016, is still ranked #6 in the June 2022 Top 500 report that was recently published. Unlike the Tianhe 2A which is still ranked #9 on the same list, the SUNWAY seems to be built entirely with domestic and proprietary chips, accelerators and interconnects. This machine might be a better indication of China's computing capability because it might be using 100% domestic technology while the Tianh3 2A is built using Intel Xeon chips, Chinese accelerators and interconnects.
  • @eggman105
    The chips in those computers are not at all "tiny." The Radeon Instinct MI250X GPUs in Frontier have a die size of 1540 mm^2.
  • @sohailvlogt
    WSJ make video on Quantum computing china vs US. China world leader in Quantum computing.
  • @havencat9337
    And...how do you expect them to reveal what they do if they are blocked continuously whenever they make any small progress?
  • @egzain05
    Both Countries Are Doing Great... Keep it Up ❤
  • @binmo1984
    USA is sanctioning every competitors so China decided to quit the game. Now USA is number one again. not because you are the fastest. but because China quit the game😹😹😹😹
  • With digital hardware wouldn't you be able to take a solar panel and make a optical transistor then make a digital form of the radio sound to make a optical processor from one transistor or two solar panels that's how I made the Gameboy a supercomputer on the digital side for the future  Of you ever thought to use solar as the reflection light for holograms you could play the phase of the optical stream of the light the reflection bounce through solar
  • @Hojadurdy
    But which one can run Crysis better?
  • @Anna__Zheng
    how do these computers compare to quantum computers in speed and technology?