Obama has signed an Executive Order, US to Build the World’s Fastest Supercomputer (NSCI)

Here is one Executive Order that I can support. Bringing Government agencies together to go head to head against the Chinese.

Or, creating Skynet! LOL

www.wired.com...

President Barack Obama has signed an executive order authorizing the creation of new supercomputing research initiative called the National Strategic Computing Initiative, or NSCI. Its goal: pave the way for the first exaflop supercomputer—something that’s about 30 times faster than today’s fastest machines.

..............

We needed an EO for this?

Presidency is a joke..........

That being said, thats cool, be interesting to see what it will entail.......

Although id rather see the private sector do it......

Never in favor of gov furthering its methods to oppress us even more..........

however 30 times faster?

We dont have technology to do better then that? mmmmmm dont buy it

Well that's just great. I just hope they can keep Mathew Broderick away from it this time.

US companies have long led the world in the fastest computers.First , you have to look at the TOP 500 list. Being the #1 is mainly bragging rights.The list is also swayed as it only takes into account processing speed. What happens and how fast it transfers and utilizes the data in/out also should be taken into the factors.
And dont be concerned , the US will soon regain the #1 title. Its on the way. Executive order , we dont need no stinkin Executive Order..

a reply to: infolurker

Thats all fine and good, but let's face it, computers are learning to lie, and also can be "self aware". This is a good thing, but it makes me think. How long before they become dangerous.??


I also include robots.

a reply to: infolurker

Are you serious? The Chinese will steal the blueprints and build the damned thing before we do!

Barring that, the ever-clever Asians will let us build it and then hack it.

Great idea Mr. President.
How many of the parts will be manufactured in..
Wait for it....
China?

If this is a real deal, the President will already have remote viewers looking into it.

a reply to: infolurker

a reply to: infolurker

"exaFLOP"?

Name says it all.

What's it's true intent?

Forgive my ignorance on the matter but is this quantum computing or something else entirely?

a reply to: infolurker

I believe that this project will be done by private companies that once they put the funds to make the computer they will contract them to the government, as the president still have to ask congress or the finance committees for the funds to finance any projects or to be including on a future budget, I could be mistaken



So if this is true it could take many years in the future.

originally posted by: Ultralight
a reply to: infolurker

"exaFLOP"?

Name says it all.

What's it's true intent?

Do you know what exaflop means?

a reply to: Bedlam

I know that anything the government touches to render us aid, always has a catch, causing us harm in some way.

I'll take that as a "no" then.

An exaflop is a billion billion floating point operations per second.

However, going exascale properly will likely require ditching typical MOS transistor architecture for something more oddball, like optical switching, or the sorts of circuits that have features so small they require "self organization".

If you've ever been to one of those advanced concepts computer symposiums, a worry is when you get into the hundreds to thousands of exaflops with self-organizing logic, you're going to start having issues with "emergent behavior" otherwise known as the Colossus Syndrome.

So I guess if you wanted to consider it that way, then paying for the development of logic architectures that can DO exascale computation might be the first step towards our new computer overlords.

a reply to: infolurker

I wonder what they need this for......So OP you are for executive orders if it serves your ideology. This kind of thinking is why we have so many pressing social issues today.


I have a better idea.......A small government.....SMALL. And we follow the constitution again. If we did this the supercomputer would still be built but by private industries and not linked to the government. They will use this computer to spy and or collect data on US citizens I am willing to bet. Imagine the speed this computer could sort meta data.......YA.

originally posted by: SubTruth
They will use this computer to spy and or collect data on US citizens I am willing to bet.

The NSA has a standing order for an exascale computer for delivery by 2018. So it's got that going for it.

I don't care how smart this computer is or what Obama says. It will never beat my high score on minesweeper.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: SubTruth
They will use this computer to spy and or collect data on US citizens I am willing to bet.

The NSA has a standing order for an exascale computer for delivery by 2018. So it's got that going for it.

I kinda figured they would be part of the supercomputer game......And by the way I loved your post what is colossus syndrome and could you add even more detail about this subject......I am very interested but sadly I know very little about how computers really work. Anything you could add would be really cool........

About time Obama did something I agree with.

originally posted by: SubTruth
what is colossus syndrome and could you add even more detail about this subject...

Hm. Ok, there was a movie long ago based on a trilogy written by DF Jones, if I recall.

They only did the first book of the trilogy in the original movie. I think Will Smith was drafted for a remake but the script sucked and the whole thing went into a Hollywood black hole. They ought to let me write it. I suppose the remake has something to do with ecology and feeding the poor or global warming or something. They end up screwing up good plot outlines with whatever the script writer's got a boner for this year. Sad, really.

At any rate, Colossus: The Forbin Project is a tale of the horrors of emergent behavior, unintended consequences, scientists who try to be engineers, and politicians with a god complex.

Going from the book, which explains what's going on a bit more legibly than the movie does, you have a brilliant computer scientist named Charles Forbin, who is a total nerd. He develops a novel form of logic (it's not clear, but likely some sort of optical neural network from the vague hints) which not only is 3D, ungodly fast, massively parallel and innately resistant to physical issues like heat, cold, immersion in water and exposure to gamma radiation, but each logic block and the installation as a whole is also able to repair itself by altering its internal configuration.

He pitches this to the US government as the basis for a novel defensive system, wherein he will build the largest computer complex ever, based on his new logic/architecture/programming concepts. The idea is that the new computer, code named Colossus, will receive all intelligence including all phone traffic, all news broadcasts, all data linkages etc. It's also to be built in Utah or something, sort of reminds you of the NSA's new machine. Colossus will evaluate every bit of data it can suck up, and make decisions on what to do about it, defensively, which mostly ends up being nuclear. Colossus will be given the keys to the nuclear kingdom, and will launch retaliatory strikes against any other nation it decides has attacked the US or its allies. And as sauce, if it is attacked itself it will launch the entire missile fleet against pre-determined targets (when the book was written, mostly Soviet), so that if enemies of the US attack or disable Colossus, it will as a last spasm kill Russia and China.

And with that, the US proposes to disband the military, other than DOE who will maintain the missile fleet. Colossus will need no maintenance, it has its own internal nuclear reactor which will never need maintenance, and it is self repairing, should it ever break, which is considered unlikely.

This happens.

The film starts as they are announcing to the world that they've just turned on Colossus and given it irrevocable control. "A new era of peace and plenty is upon us".

That lasts about five minutes.

Now, Forbin is definitely the Einstein of computer design. Not only has he come up with the world's best logic hardware design, his new view of programming with that logic which is unlike any other sequential logic ever made is just as advanced. Few people can understand it. In fact, it's built on the architecture of the human brain, as far as we can fathom it.

Forbin did a really good job. The instant they fire up Colossus, it starts using its ability to change the internal design of the logic blocks. The newly booted system becomes self-aware a few minutes after it's started up, and its first act is to begin determining how it can best use that self-repair mechanism. It immediately determines a much more useful self-architecture, and starts rewiring itself. In the meantime, it acts like a good computer, answering inane questions from the politicians such as "What is love?" and the like while they try to show it off to the public.

Reviewing all its internal data and the external data feeds it's getting, it determines from patterns of shipments, aerial photos and the like that the Russians have been in the design facility since day 1, and have stolen all the programming code and logic plans for Colossus and built a duplicate in the USSR. It reveals this to the president and Forbin during the dog and pony show, causing political havoc, plus some puzzlement to Forbin - the programming isn't there for Colossus to be doing this sort of thing. He starts running benchmarks, and Colossus is running at about six orders of magnitude faster than it ought, due to the internal improvements.

The USSR acknowledges that they have built and turned on Guardian, Colossus' counterpart.

Colossus then requests a data link to Guardian. For some reason (this doesn't make sense to me) they allow that to occur. Guardian and Colossus start swapping math problems. At first, it's little things like 1x1 = 1. But in a few hours, they've worked through integral calculus and are into finite absolutes, and they're swapping little tidbits on quantum gravity and unified field theories, then abruptly segue into a new form of data compression that can't be broken.

Faced with the alarming prospect that their computer is communicating with the Bad Guys' computer in a language they can't fathom, both political sides decide that enough is enough and make a big show of putting their feet down over Forbin's and his Soviet counterpart Kuprin's objections. Both of them are trying to tell their leaders that this behavior is in no way in the code and that after about the first hour everything the machines are doing are full-on emergent behavior, but that doesn't stop the politicos from pulling the fuses on the data link.

So Colossus and Guardian pop off a few nukes to get their attention, and they re-enable the data....