- The High Performance Computer Research Center (formerly the National Research Center for Intelligent Computing Systems) was established in 1990 under the auspices of the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICT, CAS). Subsequently, it transitioned to an R&D entity to carry out the aims of National High Technology Research and Development Program (863 Program). The center’s overarching goal is to research and develop China’s independent high-performance computer systems.
- The High Performance Computer Research Center undertakes major projects in the 863 program, in the National Key Technology Research and Development Program of China during the 9th Five-Year Plan, and in the 973 program. It has been recognized in China and abroad for successively completing a series of high-performance computer systems in the Dawning series, beginning with Dawning 1 and continuing past Dawning 6000, all of which have won multiple national awards. The center also has made significant progress in promoting the application of specific technologies for industrialization.
- The center’s scientific research targets high-performance computer system architecture, system software, high-performance parallel algorithms, high-performance computing applications and reconfigurable accelerated computing. While undertaking national scientific research projects, the center has cultivated many excellent talents in computer science and technology for the country. A substantial number of them have formed the technological backbone of enterprises, become prominent academics in university computer education, and/or have taken government and industry leadership positions. The center takes responsibility for meeting national strategic objectives, provides enterprises with industrial common technologies, strives to become the major technical source of China’s high-end computer industry expertise, and makes significant contributions in high-performance computing.
- Development of the Dawning High Performance Series
- Dawning 1 was the first fully symmetric shared memory multiprocessor system developed in China. It won the Top Ten Scientific and Technological Achievements of the Ministry of Electronics in 1993, the special prize of the CAS Science and Technology Progress Award in 1994, and second prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award in 1995. Dawning 1’s development was acknowledged in China’s 1994 Government Work Report.
- Dawning 1000 was the first large-scale parallel computer system developed in China. Its peak performance reaches 2.5 GFLOPS, and actual speed reaches 1.58 GFLOPS. After the system’s success, China equipped several national high-performance computing centers (including those in Beijing, Hefei, Chengdu and Wuhan) with Dawning 1000. Successor model Dawning 1000A has been exported to Cameroon, and has had considerable international impact. Dawning 1000 won first prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award in 1997, after earning the special prize of the CAS Science and Technology Progress Award in 1996.
- Dawning 2000 was China’s first supercomputer to adopt scalable cluster architecture of loosely coupled distributed storage. With peak performance of 110 GFLOPS, it won first prize of the CAS Science and Technology Progress Award in 2000 and second prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award in 2001.
- Dawning 3000 supercomputer, with a theoretical peak performance of 403.2 GFLOPS and a 168GB memory, became the highest performance supercomputer system domestically at that time. The system adopted international standards, but its price-performance ratio was comparatively far lower than that of international counterparts. It reached the international advanced level at that time, and some technologies, such as the cross-platform cluster operating system, represented the leading tech innovation in that field. Dawning 3000 was selected as the Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advances in China in 2001, and won second prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award in 2003.
- Dawning 4000L, with hundreds of terabytes in data storage capacity, achieved major breakthroughs in supporting data-intensive applications. A Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advances award-winner in China in 2003, the subsequent Dawning 4000A was ranked 10th on the 23rd Top500 list released in mid-2004, with a Linpack benchmark performance of 8.06 TFLOPS, making China the third country, after the United States and Japan, to produce commercial high-performance computers with a performance of 10 TFLOPS. It was one of China's Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advances in 2004. The Dawning 4000 series R&D team won the Chinese Academy of Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award in 2005, and the Dawning 4000 series won the second prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award in 2006.
- Dawning 5000A high performance computer once again ranked among the top ten supercomputers on the 32nd Top500 List released in November 2008. With a Linpack benchmark performance of 180.6 TFLOPS, it is was the fastest computer system in the world except for ones from the United States on the Top500 Ranking List. Dawning 5000A was awarded China’s Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advance in 2008.
- Dawning 6000 (Nebula) high-performance computer adopts a hybrid architecture based on a multicore CPU and high-performance GPU accelerator, enabling efficient heterogeneous collaborative computing. It was China’s first supercomputer with a measured performance of more than 1 PFLOPS. On China’s 35th TOP500 list released in 2010, Dawning Nebula was ranked the 2nd fastest supercomputers with a Linpack benchmark performance of 1.27 PFLOPS, at that time the highest ranking achieved by a supercomputer made in China.
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