A Breakthrough

With the information explosion in the 20th century came the need to process large quantities of data. Since conventional methods could no longer serve this purpose, this led to the emergence of powerful computing systems known as supercomputers. Until recently only 31 countries had such systems. They are used to model nuclear explosions and physical processes in atomic reactors, conduct aerodynamic testing of new planes and cars, which enables designers to save millions of dollars. Supercomputers help monitor the environment and forecast natural disasters, which is fifteen times cheaper than the cost of disaster relief efforts. For example, ever since Japan built such a system, the death toll from natural disasters has declined by an order of magnitude. The $400 million supercomputer NEC Earth Simulator, which for a long time was the world’s fastest machine, was built especially to monitor climate changes on a global scale. These systems are used to map the human genome and develop new drugs, create special video effects, and process large databases. Supercomputers are used to perform calculations in physics, chemistry, astronomy, meteorology, biology, and medicine. A special sphere of application for these “smart machines” is security and defense. Since 1993 the Universities of Mannheim (Germany) and Tennessee (USA) have been compiling the Top 500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers. This list is currently topped by a 32,768-processor IBM BlueGene supercomputer with a price tag of $100 million, built for the US Department of Energy.

Ukraine has now taken a serious step toward joining the elite group of countries that have supercomputers. The Hlushkov Institute of Cybernetics of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences recently presented its multiprocessor computing systems SKIT-1 and SKIT-2, a major step toward creating an information society in Ukraine.

There was a time when Ukraine prided itself on the accomplishments of its cybernetic scientists. It was here, in 1951, that the first electronic computer in the USSR and all of continental Europe was built. The Institute of Cybernetics was established as part of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Its scientists developed computers for heavy industry, the navy, air force, power engineering, the rocket and space industries, and many other sectors. The microelectronic industry was thus born. As far back as the 1970s, one of the founding fathers of cybernetics, Viktor M. Hlushkov, conceived the idea of a so-called “macro-conveyor computer,” the precursor of contemporary multiprocessor systems. By the late 1980s his idea was brought to life in the form of a unique complex called the ES-1766, which had a processing capacity of 200 million operations per second (0.2 Gflops), and was unmatched in the world at the time.

With the collapse of the USSR, the microelectronics industry almost disappeared from Ukraine. In the 1990s Ukrainian cybernetics largely depended on Western grants for survival. It was commonly held that the possibility for creating fast computing systems in Ukraine was lost forever. While we could no longer build a supercomputer on our own, the lack of funds and the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which imposed an embargo on shipments of high-tech products to Ukraine, among other countries, made it impossible even to buy one. Thus, we had to content ourselves with personal computers, with which scientists had been making do for a long time, accumulating theoretical and practical experience in the process. A breakthrough came early last year, when funding was finally provided.

A team of 50 mathematicians, software developers, engineers, and technicians under the guidance of Cybernetics Institute director Academician Ivan Serhiyenko set about their task with great enthusiasm. In half a year they developed and launched multiprocessor cluster systems SKIT 1 (32 processors) and SKIT 2 (64 processors), with a processing capacity of 200 and 350 Gflops, respectively. Unfortunately, the days when computers were made from Ukrainian components, are long gone, so the two supercomputers run on Intel processors. According to the project’s chief designer, Prof. Valeriy Koval, our machines are on an even higher level than their peers, because their architectural design and structure contain smart mechanisms. In terms of their properties, these systems rank on a par with similar systems elsewhere in the world and incorporate the best achievements of computer design.

Aside from being used to process large quantities of data quickly, these supercomputers also contribute to advances in the sphere of artificial intelligence: image recognition, classification, automated reasoning, and decision making in uncertain conditions, understanding natural language, etc. Both computers are among the top ten fastest computers in the CIS and Eastern Europe. As Dr. Koval put it, Ukraine has virtually exploded onto the list of countries that are developing multiprocessor computing systems. After all, it is not that easy to join this club and keep up with the rest, especially considering that for a long time such systems were nonexistent in Ukraine.

But it is not enough simply to build a supercomputer. It has to be kept busy with tasks that match its processing capacity. Cybernetics Institute specialists have developed software packages to solve problems in the sphere of economics, mathematics, cryptography, ecology, seismology, linguistics, and many other fields. The Space Research Institute is using SKIT systems to process high-resolution satellite images and to calculate optimal orbits for spacecraft. The Program Systems Institute has developed packages for analyzing and forecasting natural and man-made processes in the atmosphere.

Thus, the SKIT systems will not be idling. Many institutes of the National Academy of Sciences look forward to using them in their research. Yet funding remains a question mark, as usual. It cost the state under half a million dollars to design and build the two machines, which is a trifling amount for a supercomputer. By contrast, the Belarusian 576-processor K 1000 supercomputer, which ranks 98th in the Top 500 list of the world’s fastest computers, cost $2.1 million to build. Meanwhile, if our SKIT-2 is upgraded, it may reach a processing capacity of 2.5 Tflops and occupy an even higher position in this list. To upgrade the SKIT machines to their design capacity and enable users to access them, close to UAH 15-20 million is needed, which is not much by world standards. The academy’s institutes will use the supercomputers for free, while other organizations and companies will be able to access them on a contractual basis. Until the machines are hooked up to the Internet, they cannot be used to their full capacity. Incidentally, no country normally allows such complexes to idle out of economic considerations, since processor time is very expensive.

Aside from the shortage of funds for upgrading the SKIT supercomputers, Ukraine has another very specific problem: you can never be sure that scientists will find a demand for the results of their research. For example, the SKIT system can be used to analyze the draft budget in real time. So when a member of parliament demands higher funding for an individual budget item, the system will immediately show how this will affect both the target sector and macroeconomic indicators in general. National Academy of Sciences president Borys Paton has suggested that this system be proposed to the government for the upcoming budget review slated for this March, to which the developers replied that they had already done so many times. According to one of the scientists, the 1996 draft budget was analyzed at his institute, but the scientists’ economic growth forecast did not tally with the government’s optimistic calculations, to put it mildly. Since then their services were dispense with, for obvious reasons.

The natural disaster forecasting system proposed by Ukrainian scientists should also be mentioned. It is an open secret that funds earmarked for disaster relief efforts occasionally disappear without a trace. Meanwhile, international experience and the natural environment monitoring system developed by Ukrainian scientists would enable the government to save significant sums.

The new president has proclaimed European integration as one of his major goals. The European way is not only about achieving a high level of social and legal standards, but also about making progress from an industrial society toward an information society. Our SKIT systems may help the government solve many vital problems. It only remains for the government to help Ukrainian supercomputers. After all, the scale on which they are used is one of the indicators of how advanced a country’s high technologies are. In the Top 500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers the US occupies 267 positions, Great Britain 42, Germany 35, France 15, while Ukraine has only two supercomputers. Can’t we do any better than this?

Manufacturer/Name                Processing capacity, Tflops             Country

1 IBM BlueGene                           70.72                                                      USA

2 SGI Columbia                            51.87                                                     USA

3 NEC Earth Simulator               35.86                                                      Japan

4 IBM MareNostrum                    20.53                                                      Spain

5 CDC Thunder                           19.94                                                       USA

Computer                                  Processing capacity, Tflops               Country

1 SKIF -1000                                2.03                                                          Belarus

2 JSC RAS                                    1.4                                                            Russia

3 MVS-1000М                               0.734                                                        Russia

4 SRCC MSU                                0.5                                                            Russia

5 IPIA NAS AR                               0.48                                                          Armenia