Tianhe-1 facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Tianhe-1 and Tianhe-1A

Tianhe-1
Active	Tianhe-1 Operational 29 October 2009, Tianhe-1A Operational 28 October 2010
Sponsors	National University of Defense Technology
Operators	National Supercomputing Center
Location	National Supercomputing Center, Tianjin, People's Republic of China
Operating system	Linux
Memory	96 TB (98304 GB) for Tianhe-1, 262TB for Tianhe-1A
Speed	Tianhe-1: 563 teraFLOPS (Rmax) 1,206.2 teraFLOPS (Rpeak), Tianhe-1A: 2,566.0 teraFLOPS (Rmax) 4,701.0 teraFLOPS (Rpeak)
Ranking	TOP500: 2nd, June 2011 (Tianhe-1A)
Purpose	Petroleum exploration, aircraft simulation
Sources	top500.org

Tianhe-I, also known as Tianhe-1 or TH-1, is a very powerful supercomputer. Its name means "Milky Way Number One" in Chinese. It is located in Tianjin, China, at the National Supercomputing Center of Tianjin.

From October 2010 to June 2011, Tianhe-1A was the fastest computer in the world. It could perform calculations at an amazing speed of 2.57 petaFLOPS. A petaFLOP means one quadrillion (that's a 1 followed by 15 zeros!) calculations per second. Both Tianhe-1 and its upgraded version, Tianhe-1A, use a Linux-based operating system.

In August 2015, the Tianhe-1 supercomputer was temporarily shut down as a safety measure. This happened after some explosions occurred nearby in Tianjin. The computer itself was not damaged and was back online a few days later.

About Tianhe-1

The original Tianhe-1 supercomputer was created by the Chinese National University of Defense Technology (NUDT). It was first shown to the public on 29 October 2009.

When it was first tested, Tianhe-1 was ranked as the fifth fastest supercomputer in the world. It could reach a speed of 563 teraFLOPS. A teraFLOP is one trillion calculations per second.

Tianhe-1A: The Upgrade

In October 2010, an improved version called Tianhe-1A was introduced. This upgrade made it much faster. Tianhe-1A became the world's fastest supercomputer at that time.

This new version used many powerful parts. It had 14,336 Xeon processors and 7,168 Nvidia Tesla GPUs. GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) are special computer chips that are very good at doing many calculations at once.

NVIDIA, a company that makes GPUs, said that it would have taken 50,000 regular computer processors to get the same speed. Using GPUs helped save a lot of space and power. Tianhe-1A used much less electricity than if it had been built only with regular processors.

How Tianhe-1A is Built

The Tianhe-1A system is very large. It is made up of 112 computer cabinets, which are like big closets filled with computer parts. It also has many storage and communication cabinets.

Inside these cabinets are thousands of computer parts. Each part works together to make the supercomputer run. The system has a huge amount of storage, about 2 Petabytes. A petabyte is equal to 1,000 terabytes, or about 1 million gigabytes!

A special high-speed connection called Arch helps all the parts of Tianhe-1A talk to each other very quickly. This connection was designed in China and is very fast.

What Tianhe-1A Does

Tianhe-1A is used for many important tasks. It helps with finding oil and gas underground. It also helps in the design of airplanes.

This supercomputer is an "open access" computer. This means that other countries and companies can use its power for their own research and projects.

Building Tianhe-1A cost about $88 million. It costs about $20 million each year to run it and pay for electricity. Around 200 people work to keep it running smoothly.

Important Milestones

• October 2009: Tianhe-1 is first shown to the public.
• October 2010: Tianhe-1A becomes the world's fastest supercomputer.
• June 2011: The K computer from Japan takes over as the world's fastest.
• August 2015: Tianhe-1A is temporarily shut down as a precaution after nearby explosions. It quickly resumes operation.

Images for kids

• 

  Tianhe-1 supercomputer

See also

In Spanish: Tianhe-I para niños

• HPC Challenge Benchmark
• Supercomputing in China
• Tianhe-2