Source: Nanfang Daily, Edition NO.AA23
Author: Tan Wanneng, Liu Jun

"Guangzhou wants to buy a supercomputer of the highest computing speed in the world. It performs at 11 exaFLOPS and is tens of times faster than the current fastest computer in the world. I will go to Changsha this weekend to order.”

Nanfang Daily News - Guangzhou Supercomputing Center, known as the NO.1 Project of Science and Technology of Guangzhou, has entered a substantive stage now. Yesterday, Chen Jianhua, Mayor of Guangzhou, said at the Urban Management Conference, that he would go to Changsha to order a supercomputer this weekend. This supercomputer can perform at 11 exaFLOPS, which is internationally top-ranking, at an astronomical price of 2.4 billion RMB. After coming into use, the supercomputer will become the city’s brain in the fields of strategic emerging industries, major scientific researches, and intelligent management of the city and it will be the foundation of Intelligent Guangzhou.

It’s reported that, the proposed Guangzhou Supercomputing Center will perform at the international top-level computing speed once it’s completed. The predetermined  computing power is nearly ten times as much as that of the existing one with 1271 billion of operations per second in National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen (Shenzhen Cloud Computing Center).
At the Urban Management Conference yesterday, Mayor Chen Jianhua said that, “Guangzhou wants to buy a supercomputer of the highest computing speed in the world. It performs at 11 exaFLOPS and is tens of times faster than the current fastest computer in the world. I will go to Changsha this weekend to order.” He also pointed out that, the astronomical price of this supercomputer, which may probably create a new record in the field of global supercomputer computing power, was 2.4 billion, and at present, it was determined to start the construction.

In fact, the construction of the national Guangzhou Supercomputing Center is an important focus of Guangzhou’s 12th Five-Year Informationalization, and one of the most important foundation projects aiming at constructing an Intelligent Guangzhou. If we compare the Intelligent Guangzhou construction to an Intelligent Tree, then the Guangzhou Supercomputing Center is the root. According to the plan, the computing center will be “a National Supercomputing Center in Guangzhou, representing national core competitiveness with national top level.” It’s also one of the significant symbols for Guangzhou to construct a state-level central city. It’s learned that the location of Guangzhou Supercomputing Center has not yet been finalized.