中国天河2号将成全球最快超级计算机

'If anybody believes that the Chinese are just in there for a stunt, this machine has proven them wrong,' Mr. Simon said.
西蒙说，如果有人觉得中国人研究超级计算机只是噱头，这台计算机可以证明他们错了。

He argued that the U.S. government has invested sporadically in supercomputers lately, while Chinese agencies have spent steadily. 'In some areas where there has been a tradition of U.S. leadership, the Chinese are out there to really be in the race and win,' Mr. Simon said.
他说，美国政府最近对超级计算机进行了零散的投资，而中国的投资一直很稳定。西蒙说，在美国长期占据领导地位的一些领域，中国人已经在参与竞争并且取得成功。

No official price has been released for the Tianhe-2 system, which was constructed with help from the Chinese company Inspur. But some U.S. researchers put the likely cost at $200 million to $300 million.
天河2号系统的官方价格还没有公布。天河2号系统是在中国公司浪潮集团(Inspur Co.)的协助下建造的。但是美国的一些研究人员认为价格可能在2亿美元到3亿美元之间。

Tianhe-2 is a big endorsement for a new Intel product line. The Silicon Valley company's standard microprocessors have been used in supercomputers since the 1990s. But some big machines lately have been enhanced with chips called GPUs, or graphics processing units, from companies such as Nvidia Corp. NVDA -2.14%
天河2号是对英特尔一个新产品系列的巨大认可。自从上世纪90年代以来，这家硅谷公司的标准微处理器就一直被用于超级计算机中。但是一些大型计算机近来使用了叫做“图形处理单元”(GPU)的芯片，并因此得到性能上的提升，这些GPU来自英伟达(Nvidia Corp.)等公司。

Intel has responded with the Xeon Phi, a specialized chip with as many as 61 calculating engines. The new Chinese system has 48,000 of those chips, as well as 32,000 conventional Xeon chips based on a forthcoming design not yet generally available, according to Mr. Dongarra's report.
英特尔的回应是推出了Xeon Phi，这是一种拥有多达61个计算引擎的专业芯片。根据唐加拉的报告，中国新的系统拥有4.8万个Xeon Phi芯片，以及3.2万个传统的Xeon芯片，这些芯片基于一种即将推出的设计，这种设计目前还没有全面普及。

In addition, the system has about 4,000 chips developed in China that are based on a standard design called Sparc. Mr. Dongarra said Chinese officials appear determined to reduce their dependence on U.S. components.
除此之外，这一系统拥有大约4,000个在中国开发的芯片，这些芯片基于一种叫做Sparc的标准设计。唐加拉说，中国官员似乎下定决心减少对美国零部件的依赖。

He doesn't discount the possibility that government agencies in Japan will field a system to rival the Tianhe-2, but he regards the Chinese system as particularly impressive. 'In some sense, it's a wake-up call to the U.S.,' Mr. Dongarra said.
他不否认日本的政府机构也可能推出一个与天河2号相竞争的系统，但是他认为中国的系统格外令人印象深刻。唐加拉说，在某种意义上，这对美国是个警醒。