The purchase of the high-profile Dawning 4000A supercomputer by the Shanghai Supercomputing Centre (SSC) marks a milestone in China's high-performance computer development, as it will be not only a leap forward in computing research and development (R&D), but also in the commercial application of such advanced hardware.

"The making and selling of the machine will break new ground, not only because it will be the fastest computer ever developed in China, but also because it will provide an example of the successful practical application of supercomputers," Li Jun, president of Dawning Information Industrial Co Ltd (Dawning), the developer of Dawning 4000A, said recently.

Dawning Information Industrial Co Ltd (Dawning) recently signed a contract with SSC for the latter's purchase of a Dawning 4000A supercomputer.

The dynamic calculating machine will be capable of computing 10 trillion flops per second. China will be the third country, after the United States and Japan, to produce such a computer.

Before the deal, there were always doubts in the country about whether supercomputers of the speed and capability of the Dawning 4000A are really needed.

"Now we have got the answer, and it is a very positive one," Li stressed.

"Of course, this has much to do with SSC's rapidly expanding business, which requires high-performance and high-speed calculating equipment," Li added.

Endorsing Li's remarks, Yang Bailing, deputy president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), commented that the development and manufacture of high-performance supercomputers must be governed by the practical needs of the market place.

"Actual market demand is the driving force behind the development of supercomputers. Thus the latter should fully follow a market-oriented path in their further development," Yang said.

"Computing speed is not the most important criterion in judging whether a computer is useful or not - actual functionality is. That is why we attached much importance to the commercial application of high-end computers," said Li Guojie, director of the computing institute under CAS.

Ma Songde, deputy minister of science and technology added: "The deal signed between Dawning and SSC demonstrates that parties within China's high-performance computer industry are doing a good job in taking into cognizance the commercial applications of high-end computers, though China is still lagging behind its international counterparts in developing faster calculating machines."

Yan Junqi, Shanghai's vice-mayor, commented that SSC was set up to stimulate and to satisfy the market demand for high-end computers.

"Now SSC is in smooth operation, having completed more than 30 projects for 28 clients from all over the country.

"As business further expands, we will need faster and more sophisticated equipment to enhance computing capacity. That is why SSC chose to hammer out a deal with Dawning for the new computer,"Yan said.

Established in 2000 in Shanghai, SSC offers an open high-end computing facility to provide clients with services such as super computing, mass data processing, large-scale database management and sophisticated scientific research.

Several days before Dawning's deal with SSC, Lenovo, China's top computer maker and leading IT player, announced the launch of its DeepComp 6800, with a computing capability of about 4 trillion flops per second.

Lenovo authorities declined to comment on Dawning's 4000A deal with SSC.

But some insiders say that since the Dawning 4000A has not come out yet, the actual functionality or speed is not known.

The Dawning 4000A is a high-performing and high-speed computer, with more than 2,000 64-bit AMD Opteron processors that make 10 trillion flops per second computing possible.

Dawning was honoured recently at the CBI 2003 IT Industry Channel Seminar, because of its 64-bit technology and its application.

The company is one of the top three server makers in China.

(China Daily 01/06/2004 page1)