The supercomputer Forerunner 1 (創進一號) has officially been launched for deployment in fields that require high-performance computing, including weather forecasts, astrophysics simulations, and engineering design and simulations, the National Center for High-Performance Computing said yesterday.
The center last year began building the next-generation supercomputer at its office in Tainan to replace the Taiwania 1 (台灣杉一號), which has been retired.
Forerunner 1 features 62,496 computing cores, with an overall performance capacity of up to 3.5 petaflops and 9.2 petabytes of storage, the center said.
Photo courtesy of the National Center for High-Performance Computing
For the first time, 40 ARM architecture computing nodes have been installed in the new supercomputer, allowing users to conduct preliminary heterogeneous architecture testing as a reference for the center when it builds new supercomputers in the future, it said.
The center has built supercomputers of different architectures to cope with large-scale scientific and artificial intelligence (AI) projects, it said.
The CPU-based Forerunner 1 is suitable for various high-performance computing tasks, including weather forecasts, astrophysics simulations, molecular model simulations, and engineering design and simulation.
Taiwania 1 was built in 2017 with a performance capacity of 1.7 petaflops, center director-general Chang Chau-lyan (張朝亮) said in a statement.
“With the rapid development of global high-performance computing and artificial intelligence, the improvement of computing power is directly related to the nation’s technological competitiveness,” Chang said.
“The center will gradually establish more powerful computing infrastructure,” he said.
The center is scheduled to complete the construction of 16 petaflops of graphics processing unit-based computing power by the end of this year to meet the needs of AI-related research and application, such as large language models, Chang said.
“We are also aiming to upgrade our computing power to 200 to 300 petaflops by 2028 to further enhance Taiwan’s competitiveness in global technology research and development,” he said.
During the pilot test, Forerunner 1 demonstrated excellent performance in many fields, including astrophysics, fluid mechanics, atmospheric science, high-energy physics and materials computing, the center said.
With the use of Forerunner 1, Academia Sinica’s astrophysics research has increased its computing speed by 5.3 times, while National Chung Hsing University and National Cheng Kung University have significantly increased the scale of fluid dynamics calculations and simulations, reducing the calculation time for billion-level ultra-fine grids from several months to 40 hours, the center said.
The next-generation supercomputer has helped elevate National Taiwan University’s air-sea coupling model test efficiency, which was 80 percent higher than that conducted by Taiwania 3, the center said.
Research on quantum chemistry and materials calculations has also been significantly accelerated, it said.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —