Galaxy (supercomputer series)

Galaxy (Chinese: 銀河; pinyin: Yínhé), also called "Yinhe" or "Milky Way", refers to a series of supercomputers developed by the National University of Defense Technology of China, beginning in the early 1980s. The series played a foundational role in the development of China’s high‑performance computing capabilities and laid the groundwork for later systems such as Tianhe-1 and Tianhe-2.[1][2][3][4]

History

Galaxy‑I

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping said "China cannot achieve the Four Modernizations without supercomputers!", and entrusted the development of the supercomputer to the National University of Defense Technology. Professor Ci Yungui was appointed as the chief designer.[5][4]

In 1983, China's first supercomputer, the "Galaxy-1" or "Yinhe-1", capable of performing over 100 million operations per second (MFLOPS), was successfully developed by the National University of Defense Technology. And China became the third country in the world, after the United States and Japan, to successfully develop a supercomputer. General Zhang Aiping gladly inscribed the name "银河" ("Yinghe" or "Galaxy") for the machine.[3][4][6][5][1]

Galaxy‑II

In March, 1988, the Galaxy‑II (or Yinhe-II) project started. It completed in 1992, achieving performance on the order of 1 billion operations per second. "Galaxy-II" made China one of the few countries in the world at that time capable of issuing medium- and long-term numerical weather forecasts.[7][3][5]

Galaxy‑III

Galaxy‑III, completed in 1997, adopted a distributed parallel architecture and reached a peak performance of approximately 13 GFLOPS (13 billion operations per second). "Yinhe-3" supercomputer passed national certification on 19 June 1997.[8][5]

Legacy and Influence

The Galaxy series is widely regarded as the technological and institutional predecessor of China’s modern supercomputing efforts. National University of Defense Technology, the developer of the Galaxy line, later led the creation of the Tianhe supercomputer line, including Tianhe-1, Tianhe-1A and Tianhe-2, which achieved 33.86 PFLOPS and ranked #1 on the TOP500 list for six consecutive editions between 2013 and 2015.[2][3][6][9][10][11][12]

The development of Tianhe‑2 was supported by the Chinese government’s 863 Program and involved collaboration with the IT firm Inspur. The U.S. export restrictions on Intel processors in 2015 further accelerated China’s push toward fully domestic supercomputing architectures, culminating in systems such as Sunway TaihuLight.[2][13][3]

In November 2024, the Tianhe Exa-node Prototype supercomputer in Tianjin was ranked No1 in GreenGraph500 Big Data, while the Tianhe supercomputer in Changsha topped the GreenGraph500 Small Data.[14][15]

U.S. Worry

An analysis of over 100 research papers from 2016 to 2024 reveals that, despite the U.S. sanctions imposed on China in 2015, researchers of the U.S. Department of Defense and National Laboratories have continued to publish research findings using Chinese supercomputers, including TianHe-1, TianHe-1A, and TianHe-2 systems. Many co-researchers are from Chinese institutions that have clear ties to the People’s Liberation Army. This ongoing collaboration highlights challenges to the U.S. [16]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Ma, W, and Chen, Z. (1984). "Galaxy - China's first supercomputer". Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ a b c Davey Alba (2013-06-17). "China's Tianhe-2 Caps Top 10 Supercomputers". IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved 2013-06-19.
  3. ^ a b c d e Rebecca Tan (2019-07-19). "The Race To Exascale". Asian Scientist Magazine. Archived from the original on 27 November 2022. Retrieved 2022-11-19.
  4. ^ a b c ""银河"巨型计算机系统通过鉴定 (The "Galaxy" supercomputer system passed evaluation)". People's Daily (in Chinese). 1983-12-22.
  5. ^ a b c d Si Hongwei (2023). "记忆40年：研制第一台巨型计算机"银河-I" (Remembering 40 Years: The Development of the First Supercomputer, "Galaxy-I")". 中国计算机学会通讯 (China Computer Federation Communications) (in Chinese) (12): 36–42.
  6. ^ a b Luo Yougan, Xi Fangdan (2024-12-22). "铸就超算 "国之利器" (Forging Supercomputing as a "National Weapon")". National University of Defense Technology.
  7. ^ "银河-Ⅱ巨型计算机 (Galaxy-II supercomputer)" (in Chinese). China Computer Federation. Retrieved 2026-01-09.
  8. ^ "19 June 1997, "Yinhe-3" supercomputer passed national certification". Our China Story. 2024-06-19.
  9. ^ "China claims supercomputer crown". BBC. 29 October 2010. Retrieved 29 October 2010.
  10. ^ Alex Knapp. "China's Tianhe-2 Remains The World's Fastest Supercomputer". Forbes. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  11. ^ "Woman Makes China Stand Out in Global Supercomputing Industry". All-China Women's Federation. November 16, 2023.
  12. ^ Yang, Xue-Jun; Liao, Xiang-Ke; Lu, Kai; Hu, Qing-Feng; Song, Jun-Qiang; Su, Jin-Shu (2011). "The TianHe-1A Supercomputer: Its Hardware and Software". Journal of Computer Science and Technology. 26 (3). Springer Nature: 344–351. doi:10.1007/s02011-011-1137-8.
  13. ^ "TOP500 List - November 2022". TOP500.org. Retrieved 2026-01-09.
  14. ^ Bojan Stojkovski (Nov 23, 2024). "China military's supercomputer tops global rankings, clocks 6,320 MTEPS/W". Interesting Enginnering.
  15. ^ "Tianhe supercomputer tops GreenGraph 500 Big Data and Small Data ranking". National University of Defense Technology. 2024-11-22.
  16. ^ "The Supercomputer Entanglement: Ongoing use of PRC-Sanctioned Supercomputers by the Department of Defense and U.S. National Laboratories". Data Abyss. Retrieved 2026-01-09.
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