Question: How long would it take to build a supercomputer more powerful than the Shenwei Taihu Light?
Answer: One week.
And it could be put into operation within that same week.
It was an utterly unbelievable answer. No one would have thought a supercomputer could be completed in such a short time.
This was not a personal computer. Even assembling a personal computer took several hours. How could a supercomputer possibly be built so quickly?
A supercomputer required terrifying amounts of electricity, cooling, and related systems. In 2015, Google's parent company released data showing that the electricity its supercomputers used in a year was roughly equivalent to that used by the entire city of San Francisco in a year!
What kind of concept was that?
The energy consumed by supercomputers was incredibly terrifying.
As for why one could be built in such a short time, the answer was four words: strategic reserves!
Many people did not realize that, for a nation, strategic reserves did not merely mean frozen pork, grain, weapons and ammunition, crude oil, and energy.
Strategic reserves covered every aspect of life, and supercomputers were no exception.
Why stockpile supercomputers? The reason was simple. Modern warfare, national defense networks, and more all required supercomputers and large data centers for support.
And in wartime, such facilities were also key targets for the enemy. The concept of strategic reserves meant that, once those places were destroyed by the enemy, the country could assemble an entirely new supercomputer elsewhere in the shortest possible time. That was strategic reserve!
It was not a matter of waiting until one was needed before buying chips for assembly. By then, it would be far too late.
In fact, before the United States restricted imports, the country had reserves of various chips. Of course, chip reserves