Great Country Academician

With the stamped application form, Xu Chuan came to the High Performance Computing Center of Nanjing University and found Professor Zhou Qinglin, who is in charge of managing the entire supercomputing center.

"Professor Xu, rare guest. What kind of wind brought you here."

When Zhou Qinglin, who was working, saw Xu Chuan, he was taken aback for a moment, and then quickly got up and greeted him with a smile.

"Director Zhou, the main purpose of coming here this time is to apply for a supercomputer."

After greeting Zhou Qinglin with a smile, Xu Chuan explained to him why he came.

After listening to his request, Professor Zhou Qinglin looked surprised and amazed.

"You mean you built a phenomenological mathematical control model for the plasma turbulence in a controllable nuclear fusion reactor? Are you sure...that's right?"

To be honest, Zhou Qinglin has been in charge of the supercomputing center of Nantah University for more than ten years, and he has seen many mathematical models, including fluid, turbulent flow, plasma flow and other mathematical models.

But it was the first time he had seen the mathematical model of plasma turbulence in a controllable fusion reactor.

Although he is neither a mathematician nor a physicist, he has controlled the supercomputing center for so many years and more or less knows the meaning behind this model.

Xu Chuan shrugged and said, "I don't need to waste everyone's time joking about this. Your time is precious, and so is mine."

Hearing this, Zhou Qinglin laughed and said, "Professor Xu is joking, your time is much more precious than mine."

After a pause, he continued, "Did you bring that model? Let me take a look first."

Taking out the solid-state drive with the model stored in it from his backpack, Xu Chuan handed it over, nodded and said, "I have it, this is it."

Zhou Qinglin took the model, opened it curiously, found a hard disk inside, looked up at Xu Chuan, and joked: "It seems that this model is not small, and it needs to be saved with a t hard disk. "

Xu Chuan said with a smile: "The model is not big, but it may not be that easy to run it. I feel that our supercomputing center may not be able to afford it."

Hearing this, Zhou Qinglin raised his eyebrows and said with a smile, "Then what you need may not be a supercomputer, but a quantum computer?"

Although the supercomputing center of Nantah University Supercomputing Center is not very strong and cannot be ranked in the domestic supercomputing rankings, after the upgrade in 2015, 910 CPU computing nodes were deployed, with a total of 21840 CPU cores. The theoretical calculation peak value is 870 trillion operations per second.

This level of supercomputing, let alone a mathematical model, is not a problem even if a hundred mathematical models are calculated together on it.

Of course, the calculation of fluid and turbulent models is indeed very complicated, but after all, the performance of NTU's supercomputing center is as high as nearly one petaflop per second, and it is impossible to fail to run it.

But he didn't say that. After all, Professor Xu is studying mathematical physics, so he may not know much about computers.

"Come with me, I'll find someone to show you the model first." Professor Zhou Qinglin smiled, and walked towards the laboratory of the Supercomputing Center with the hard drive.

He is only in charge of controlling the supercomputing center, not a professional expert.

As for how much computing power the plasma turbulence model created by Professor Xu requires, how many computing cores need to be divided, these need to be known after expert judgment.

"Old Liu, come here and help me. Professor Xu has a mathematical model that he wants to test. Let's see how to divide the computing power."

In the laboratory, Zhou Qinglin called out to another middle-aged man who was busy in front of the computer.

After hearing the shout, the middle-aged man in the laboratory quickly raised his head and looked over.

"Yo, Professor Xu." Old Liu smiled and got up and walked over, shaking hands with Xu Chuan warmly.

Xu Chuan responded with a smile: "Professor Liu, I am sorry to trouble you."

"Hey, what's the trouble? Isn't that what you should do to serve Professor Xu?" Lao Liu took the hard drive from Zhou Qinglin with a smile, connected it to the work computer and scanned it, and then connected to the supercomputing center after confirming that there was no problem.

After clicking on the hard drive and opening the files inside, Lao Liu looked at the data and the only image displayed on the computer screen, thought for a while and said, "Professor Xu, your model may not be simple."

"If you want to test, I'm afraid you have to stop most of the other running tasks in the supercomputing center."

On the side, Zhou Qinglin asked curiously: "Is it so complicated?"

Lao Liu nodded: "This is the most complex turbulence model I have ever seen. It is not only a simulation operation, but also includes various modules such as image-only energy burst simulation, collision simulation, and magnetic confinement. It requires a lot of computing power for testing, and even our supercomputing center may not be able to drive it."

Zhou Qinglin swallowed, and couldn't help looking at Xu Chuan.

Good guy, a model that can't be carried by a supercomputer with a peak theoretical calculation of 870 trillion operations per second? Is this something a human can make? This Professor Xu probably has a quantum computing brain.

After careful inspection and analysis, Lao Liu looked up at Xu Chuan and said, "Professor Xu, if you want to test this model, I am afraid that you will need to wait for some ongoing tasks to end or to pause, and then free up the computing power before doing it." alley."

Xu Chuan asked, "How long will it take?"

Lao Liu: "Are you in a hurry? If you are in a hurry, it will take about a day or two. Director Zhou will contact the school and suspend other tasks first."

"If you are not in a hurry, you will have to wait for about a week. There are a lot of calculations being done at present, and it will take some time."

Hearing this, Xu Chuan thought for a while, looked at Zhou Qinglin and asked, "Then can I trouble Director Zhou to communicate with me? First test it. If the model cannot be run here, I can apply for help from the National Supercomputing Center."

Zhou Qinglin said with a smile: "No problem, anyway, there is nothing too important recently, it doesn't matter if you pause for a while."

After Zhou Qinglin applied for communication with Nantah University, the notice and documents to suspend other computing tasks came down soon.

Although some researchers who were doing calculations complained after receiving the notice, no one said anything after hearing that Professor Xu had jumped in line.

After all, it's not that the follow-up will not be counted for you, it's just a pause.

In the supercomputing center, it took two days of tossing before the various computing tasks that were running were suspended and saved in an orderly manner.

After dealing with these things, Xu Chuan's mathematical model was officially connected to the supercomputer.

In the control room of the supercomputing center, Xu Chuan was wearing a white anti-static suit, watching the staff responsible for processing calculations busy in front of the computer.

Beside him, Zhou Qinglin and Lao Liu stood aside and waited curiously.

It is the first time they have seen the mathematical model of plasma turbulence in a controllable nuclear fusion reactor. If this model can be successfully calculated, it will definitely be a Nobel Prize-level achievement for the physics community!

"Currently all computing tasks in the supercomputing center have been suspended, and the supercomputing is currently in good condition, and we can start experiments at any time."

In the control room, after being busy for a while, a staff member reported the supercomputing situation to Zhou Qinglin.

Hearing this, Zhou Qinglin glanced at Xu Chuan, and Xu Chuan smiled and said, "Professor Zhou, you are the one who directs. I don't understand this aspect."

"Okay." Zhou Qinglin nodded, turned his head and ordered: "Start the test."

After the order was issued, the huge supercomputing center began to operate.

After suspending other computing tasks, the supercomputer with a peak value of 870 trillion calculations per second has used all its computing power, and the model of the secondary replication has been transferred to the In the authorized account assigned in advance.

The staff in the control room quickly allocate nodes, cores, and other computing resources as required.

The scene where more than 900 computing nodes and 20,000 CPU cores work together is invisible to the naked eye, but in the microscopic world composed of 0 and 1, this is an extremely huge torrent. All opponents are invincible.

But today, they meet real opponents.

The plasma turbulence model, which is composed of mathematical formulas and operation rules, quickly decomposes into tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of turbulent micro-unit structures after inputting simulation parameters.

These turbulent structures evolve rapidly with the support of supercomputing and models to form an algorithm similar to a donut, which slowly runs in the supercomputing, simulating the plasma flow in a controllable nuclear fusion reactor.

Looking at the images and data jumping on the screen, Lao Liu, who was in charge of managing the computing power, couldn't help shaking his head.

Just as he predicted before, the supercomputing center of Nanjing University really can't afford this model.

The operation was fine at the beginning, and the computing power of the supercomputing center was sufficient to support it, but after the simulation parameters were input as required after the operation started, the output of data became slow.

This means that the supercomputing center takes longer to complete the operation and calculation of the model.

While it did work out, it was clear to everyone in the control room that it didn't make sense for a mathematical model that needed real-time control.

Turning his head, Old Liu glanced at Xu Chuan, and sighed: "Your model is too complicated, and there are too many calculations on turbulence. In China, perhaps only the top ten national-level computing centers can perfectly test it."

Xu Chuan stared at the screen, looked at the data on it and replied: "Let's take a look first, it will be regarded as collecting data."

Lao Liu shook his head and said, "That's the only way to go."

In the control room, Zhou Qinglin couldn't help but click his tongue while looking at the calculated data on the screen.

The computing performance of Nanjing University's supercomputing center is not only in the top three, but at least in the top five among universities in the country, and it can't handle a mathematical model.

How did Professor Xu's brain come up with such a model.

Shaking his head, he looked at Xu Chuan and asked, "If such a complicated model is really applied to controllable nuclear fusion, wouldn't it be necessary to build a large supercomputing center for it?"

Xu Chuan shrugged and said, "Why not? As long as it is correct."

Zhou Qinglin just wanted to say that this is too much of a waste of money. You must know that the construction of a supercomputing center starts at more than one billion yuan.

But in a flash, I remembered that this is controllable nuclear fusion. If it is really useful, it seems normal to build a supercomputing center to serve it?

ps: (10/10 for the boss, Gaoshan Liushui, hey, the addition of the boss is finally done, there are still some scattered rewards left, let's write slowly.)

There is another chapter in the evening, asking for a monthly pass.