Chinese GPUs outdo Nvidia chips nearly tenfold in supercomputer simulation: study

The accomplishment points to possible unintended consequences of Washington’s escalating tech sanctions while challenging the dominance of American-made chips, long considered vital for advanced scientific research.

Scientists often rely on simulations to model real-world circumstances, such as designs to defend against flooding or urban waterlogging. But such reproductions, especially large-scale, high-resolution simulations, demand substantial time and computational resources, limiting the broader application of such an approach.

In search of a breakthrough, Professor Nan Tongchao with the State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering at Hohai University in Nanjing, began exploring a “multi-node, multi-GPU” parallel computing approach based on domestic CPUs and GPUs. The results of their research were published in the Chinese Journal of Hydraulic Engineering on January 3.