Progress and Challenges in High Performance Computer Technology

High performance computers provide strategic computing power in theconstruction of national economy and defense, and become one of symbolsof the country's overall strength. Over 30 years, with the supports ofgovernments, the technology of high performance computers is in theprocess of rapid development, during which the computing performanceincreases nearly 3 million times and the processors number expands over10 hundred thousands times. To solve the critical issues related withparallel efficiency and scalability, scientific researchers pursuedextensive theoretical studies and technical innovations. The paperbriefly looks back the course of building high performance computersystems both at home and abroad, and summarizes the significantbreakthroughs of international high performance computer technology. Wealso overview the technology progress of China in the area of parallelcomputer architecture, parallel operating system and resourcemanagement, parallel compiler and performance optimization, environmentfor parallel programming and network computing. Finally, we examine thechallenging issues, "memory wall", system scalability and "powerwall", and discuss the issues of high productivity computers, which isthe trend in building next generation high performance computers.