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Definition
Milestones of Development
1.
In July 1996, as part of the Global Change Prediction Plan, the promotion of research
& development for the Earth Simulator has been reported to the Science Technology
Agency, based on the report titled "For Realization of the Global
Change Prediction" made by the Aero-Electronics Technology Committee.
2. In April 1997, the budget
for the development of the Earth Simulator was authorized to be allocated to National
Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) and Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development
Corporation (PNC). The Earth Simulator Research and Development Center was established,
with Dr. Miyoshi assigned for the director of the center. The project had begun.
3. Discussions were made regarding
the Earth Simulator Project, at the meeting on the Earth Simulator under the Computer
Science Technology Promotion Council (Chairman: Prof. Taro Matsuno of Hokkaido
Univ.), which was held 6 times from March to July in 1997. With a report on "Promotion
of Earth Simulator Project", specific proposals were put forward to Science
and Technology Agency. 4.
The conceptual system design of the Earth Simulator proposed by NEC Corporation
was selected by bidding. 5.
Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) had joined the project for PNC.
6. Under the Computer Science
Technology Promotion Council, the Earth Simulator Advisory Committee was instituted
with 7 members with profound knowledge in the area (Chairman: Prof. Yoshio Oyanagi
of Tokyo Univ.). From June to July in 1998, five meetings were held on the basic
design. As a result, in 24th of August it was confirmed with "The Evaluation
Report for the basic design of the Earth Simulator". 7.
In February 1999, JAMSTEC joined in the Earth Simulator development project and
decided to build the Earth Simulator facility in Kanazawa ward in Yokohama, where
it had been the industrial experiment station of Kanagawa prefecture. Manufacturing
the Earth Simulator had begun in March 2000, under NASDA, JEARI, and JAMSTEC.
After completion, the entire operation and management of the Earth Simulator was
decided to be solely charged by JAMSTEC. 8.
At the end of February in 2002, all 640 processor nodes (PN's) started its operation
for check up. The Earth Simulator Research and Development Center verified and
gained the sustained performance by AFES (an Atmospheric general circulation model
for ES), recording 7.2Tflops with 160 PN's, more than 1.44 times faster than the
target performance, 5Tflops. The Earth Simulator Center (ESC) with Director-General
Dr. Tetsuya Sato has begun the actual operation in March, 2002. 9.
On May 2, 2002 the Earth Simulator achieved the sustained performance 26.58 Tflops
by using the AFES. The highest performance record 35.86 Tflops was achieved with
the Linpack Benchmark on next day. ES was honored at the 1st rank of TOP500 list
on June 2002.
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