China’s fastest supercomputer in the marine field was officially launched on December 15. The computing performance reaches 1 petaFlops. This computer is designed and built by Inspur for the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (QNLM). The Lab will work closely with Inspur to build exascale system (8x faster than the world’s current #1 supercomputer Sunway TaihuLight). The supercomputer will be used for marine research and development projects such as Transparent Ocean, Blue Life, Deep Sea at the Pole and Ocean Equipment.

Wu Lixin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the director of QNLM, expects that the exascale supercomputer to help build world class “Global Ocean Simulator” at a sub-km level. This will enable simulation of the Earth evolution in the past 20,000 years as well as ocean weather forecast at the highest possible accuracy. Wang Endong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Inspur’s Chief Scientist, views marine as one significant application of exascale supercomputing. He anticipates that with the help of exascale machines, QNLM can become a world leader in the area of marine computing.

With the advancement of ocean observation technology like satellite remote sensing, the amount of marine data has lept from 60PB to over 350PB. Powerful supercomputers are necessary for data processing and simulations in order to support marine research. Countries including USA, UK, and Russia have long invested on marine research and have hence developed marine supercomputers and applications. As one of China’s achievements in marine computing, a highly effective global surface wave numerical simulation with ultra-high resolution developed by the First Institute of Oceanography has been nominated for Gordon Bell Prize. The Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology’s petascale system along with its exascale plan is expected to boost China’s research and application in the marine field.