Author: Pete R.
Date: 16:55:37 06/29/00
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On June 29, 2000 at 19:03:35, Fernando Villegas wrote: >Hi all: >Probably you have already read about the new supercomputer delivered by IBM to a >center where they investigate atomic devices blast. It is 1000 times faster than >deep Blue and so maybe you wonder, as me, what a thing like this could do if >running a program like that enclosed in DB. Bob? >Fernando I don't know what it means in chess terms to say ASCI White is 1000 faster than DB. DB had 32 nodes with 8 *chess* processors at each node for a total of 256 custom chess processors. This new machine has 8192 processors in (I think) 512 nodes. If there were a similar 8-way board at each node than it would be 16 times as many chess processors. Or if you want to take 8192 as the number of chess processors this is 32X what DB had. Give it another factor of two if you assume Hsu could fabricate a nextgen chess processor twice as powerful as the ones used in DB, for a factor of 64. This would give what, 3-4 more ply? So we could suppose that such a machine could reach typical search depths of 19-20 ply in the middlegame, as opposed to 16-17 for DB. Suffice it to say that if IBM wanted to spend this kind of money on another chess machine they could squash Kasparov like a bug. The funny thing, as usual, is that the typical article (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000629/ts/tech_ibm_dc_1.html) is always sure to mention Kasparov's defeat. :) Must be irritating. Personally I'm extremely disappointed that he didn't give Hsu the opportunity to fabricate new chips which could be sold as PC add-in boards. I tend to think it would be worthwhile for Microsoft to sponsor a large Windows 2000 cluster using Hsu's new chips. Given the supercomputer publicity IBM has milked from the match, this should reap much better publicity for Win2000 and Intel clusters than database-transaction figures MS currently uses for promotion. And since they are getting into the hardware business anyway with X-box they could sell chips. They could even stick the resulting machine on their MSN Gaming Zone to draw players. We already know Bill Gates is a chess fan, and MS already worked with Kasparov for the great Kasparov vs. The World game. Perhaps Dr. Nalimov could suggest it to publicity people at Microsoft. :) Or at least let us know who we can badger up there in Redmond. ;)
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