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AMD is inside Iran's missiles and supercomputers
AMD IS INVESTIGATING how its chips are being used to build supercomputers and rockets in the nation which is so democratic that it doesn't even bother counting votes.
Iran has been proudly telling the world plus dog how its boffins have made a supercomputer out of bits of string, sticky tape and Opteron chips that somehow ended up in the country.
To make matters worse, Iran's glorious missiles which could end up firing in the direction of Intel's R&D labs in Israel could also have AMD gear on board.
AMD is not allowed to flog its gear in Iran which is under a technology trade embargo. Recently the fact that AMD was propped up by Arab money was investigated in the US to see if that disqualified it for financial incentives for its new US fab in New York state. The investigation said that AMD's Arab ties were no threat to US security.
AMD says it hasn't authorised any shipments to Iran, 'directly or indirectly', however somehow the Iranian High Performance Computing Research Center (IHPCRC), which is located at Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology, said it has assembled a Linux-based system with 216 Opteron processing cores.
That is not a particularly big supercomputer as it can only manage 860 gigaflops. Apparently it is going to be used for weather forecasting.
But the Iranian research institute is also involved in the design and production of sounding, or research, rockets, which are "designed to perform scientific experiments".
Research described on the site includes work on rocket motors and separations systems or staging, which is the sort of stuff needed to create a ballistic missile capability more accurate than Saddam Hussain's comedy Scud missile threat.
AMD is not the only firm to have been embarrassed by the Iranian ability to get semiconductor chips.
In 2001 boffins at Amirkabir University built a 32-node PC cluster based on Pentium III processors from Intel. A year later they got their paws on some Pentium IV chips in another cluster.
The question is how they can get chips that easily. Unfortunately the publicity pictures (left) for the supercomputer have suggested a pretty good theory. In the background it can be seen that there are boxes marked Thacker.
Thacker is an authorised distributor of AMD products. It is based in the United Arab Emirates.
Thacker, which also goes by the name Sky Electronics, also flogs gear from Intel, Voleware, Nvidia and, er... AMD.
True the boxes could have contained things that would not upset the balance of power in the Middle East such as server cases, power supplies, or peanut butter, but it does suggest a link between Iran and Thacker.
Computerworld has been doing sterling work on nailing down the links but has not got a comment yet from Thacker. µ
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If there's an embargo on Iran for the sale of chips, what are all of Iran's computers made of? Magic?
It would seem that there would be many sources of Intel and AMD chips for a commodity supercomputer cluster.
You really think its harYou really think it’s hard to get any “sanctioned” product especially IT part which is really essential in Iran ?
Iran is one the most IT cantered country in the Middle East. All main manufactures including Asus, Gigabyte, Nvidia, AMD and Intel have a really huge market there. I’ve been there and I bet I can find Shanghai’s chipset right now in Iran, I check with my friends in Iran about new products which are available in Iran and you might be surprised to hear sometimes they have high-end products by 1 month behind US or Europe.
Its not government’s plan but more people’s interest in IT and new technology.
d to get any
I bet I7 is like hot cake in Tehran's high streets !
SKY Makes stuff for Hp, NOT Good Nor Long Lasting. Hp likes that. Yet, It takes bit 'O sophistication to make things that work reliably, for very short, predictable time. Asus Makes ASrock.
My Main seems to have burnt, not cpu (muata flipped fan lever open upon disassembly). yet most everything except start up processies of bios works No Display signal. how come. Ask SKY. They probably designed it, for Asus, Sold As ASrock. Probably as verizon software insisted on install & reinstalls, it got to intentionally defective area & Ka Boom. it was 2 minute between start screen & cesar at first. Yet, started opening up better & better, till overwhelmed by verizons' disc, in spite of dsl operating. Should have left it that way & burnt IN whole mess till more complex software could work.
well. point: US HOMELAND SECURITY seems NOT to notice North Korea Nor Iran. Just Your Nail Files & beverages, something You can BUY on board. Shouldn't THREAT Level At Least Be Seriously UpGraded?
IBM IS Chartered SemiConducTor(Asian). So Maybe America Gets Stuff, Yet America Has to Order From Catalog, Just Like EveryOne Else. America Has Done Round Ups Before, turning Off Power & Water In American Citries, Banning Travel.MASS MURDER. Who Needs Misiles?
WE WAS FREE TRAPPERS BACK IN THEIR ASHMORE,BEAVER CAME UP TO US SINGING: TAKE ME, TAKE ME.
Americans Think World revolves Around Themselves. HA.
If you're telling me that the US doesn't have satellite based Microwave and laser devices and directional EMP then you're having a laugh.
We should use these devices to vapourise the freak Ahmadinejad and if not turn Iran into a technological graveyard.
The boxes look like those holding 1U rack servers (the one being worked on). The box look like a those used to ship Tyan servers but I could be wrong.
Didn't china get a ton of AMD chips for like a dollar a year or so ago? maybe they shared with iran?!
The claimed "860 Giga operations" on 216 cores suggests that these are Opterons of the 1st or 2nd generation, running at 2.0 GHz. (216 core * 2.0 GHz * 2 ops/cycle = 864 Giga ops/cycle). Relevant model numbers are Opteron 146/246/846 (1st gen, single core, 130 nm), Opteron 170/270/870 (1st gen, dual core, 90 nm), Opteron 1212/2212/8212 (2nd gen, dual-core, 90 nm).
Assuming that these are two-socket, dual-core servers, the 216 cores implies 54 servers. For 1st-generation parts (i.e., Opteron 246), such servers are easily available on e-Bay for under $200, so something like $10,000 in total.
It is hard to imagine that any embargo on such physically small, inexpensive, discontinued technology would be 100% effective.
like people have said, why is this so amazing??? its not like you can get nuclear material off the shelf anywhere in the world and take it to iran unlike computer technology. opterons are hardly classified or highly protected materials. any bugger can go find a bunch load of them from another country on the open market
To make matters worse, Iran's glorious missiles which could end up firing in the direction of Intel's R&D labs in Israel could also have AMD gear on board.
Cut-throat competition in its most advanced form.
I hope those Opterons were AMD PIBs. That way they came with Opteron logo stickers to stick on the fuselage. That would be kinda cool. LOL
I can't understand a single f***ing word Vondrashek is saying. Everytime. Is this guy from another planet?
Bleep bleep!
Typical fear-mongering article using a pic from like last year. The fact that Iran can put togeather some servers using Tyan boards and Opterons is not really that exciting. There is no way to keep Iran in the stone age, if they want technology they will find a way to source it.
did you ever look on newegg and under the product name you see "*limit of 1000 per customer" and wonder what that was for?
"Apparently it is going to be used for weather forecasting."
10 PRINT "Scorchio"
20 GOTO 10
This is just obama working his diplomatic magic with Iran to get them to stop nuke development by giving them some US tech. Next will be US bail out money for all of europe to be our friends again...
The article below was written last year,
http://www.seawiser.com/tech/?p=151
Just one more propaganda working in favor of Israel. Funny how AMD chips end up in Israel, but the muslim nation that actually has nukes is never put under radar.
Weather you like IT or not !
The forecast for the next 1000 years, coming from you live from the Weather Centre in Tehran...
Nuclear Winter
P.S. I’ll bet Intel would now stop right in there tracks and stop breaking antitrust laws and call a cease fire with Arabian Micro Devices.
Just want to inform you inorder for your big newspaper to be able to bring the attention to this possbility...
The Pirate Bay has now changed their own startpage to say :
The Persian Bay.
Click here to help Iran!
They are offering a service targeting Iranian to be able to communicate through unstoppable domains using new technology. The site has already gain momentum and many Iranians are inserting messages about demonstrations, times and locations and cannot be censured by the Iranian Government.
Check the site out for more information
http://thepiratebay.com
or
http://thepersianbay.com
This is your gateway to free communication since the Iranian Government has blocked all other ways of communication! If you are in Iran, this is the place for you!!
No more censure from the Iranian Government! The is your portal! Lets organize!
You should consider writing something about this to bring the attention for Iranians even more, in order to allow them to communicate freely.
Sincerely / Jennifer
Those Opteron 2000 based systems were shipped end of '06. Dualcore Santa Rosa 2000 series ( < no, not a typo )
By now they might be shopping on ebay for a quadcore upgrade, like I am.
Really a threat to humanity, yeah.
Hype before the bombing; don't become a tool of the NWO media fearmongering Inq.
Nick,
I think you will find that Iran is much more into Virtual Cloud Control .... which is AI, Joint Adventuring with Mutual IntelAIgents in New World Order Programs Streaming AIMMORPARGs ...... Real Live Virtual Games for SMARTer Enabling Dynamic Robots in Human Resources.
And this is one of their NINJA* XSSXXXXStream Communications Channels.
*Networks InterNetworking Java Applications for ProgramMING Scripts Commandeering the Future ...... Global Operating Devices Willing, which IT is.
Global Power is Cloud Control and is Open Source Sharing ....... and is a Virtual IDEntity, Machine Coding for RobotIQ Control of Command Systems.
Or is that an Alien Concept too and therefore probably something of them both and completely different with every conscious/dynamic/realised reconfiguration and reassembly of thoughts ...... for an Endless Supply of Self-Turing Testing, BetaTest Role Models....... Realisation Pioneers in Live Operational Virtual Environments.
And that allows for Future Creation on Earth ...... which is Heavenly HyperRadioProActive Territory for .... well, let's just call them Novices so that will always Ponder the Wonder of Yonder, 42 Ensure CyberIntelAIgent Designs Panders to All.
And it would be a Novel Project for Iranian Future Research, which is presently, in English, showing a blank canvas ..... http://www.futureresearch.org/
How stupid can you be? China is a close ally to Iran, because China doesn't give a crap if a little state of lunatic Jewish supremacists survive or not as an apartheid state, and China doesn't have a trade embargo on them. Iran supplies oil to China, directly as well. Russia is in the same camp, despite the fact that it's Russia and Russia alone that provides Israel all it's oil.
You can do nuclear simulation with a group of ARM processors today glued together in a Beowulf cluster. A supercomputer was made with a bunch of PS2's wired together using the GPU to do the math about 6 years ago.
The only real problem the United States has with Iran anyhow, is that in 1979, a bunch of people threw out the US puppet that was installed into power in 1953 with Operation Ajax, destroying their democracy, so that the US and Britain could mine their oil on the cheap. The big fear of the US government is that if they get a nuclear weapon, they can't be controlled.
Just look at Israel and Dimona, and how nuts they went after Mordechai Vanunu exposed it to the world.
Don't get caught in the hype Nick. Please have a look at the two links below:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/06/432356.html
A Different Perspective on the Iranian Elections
by Gary Sudborough, Indymedia UK, 15 June 2009
________________
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/06/432257.html
Some observations on the Iranian presidential election and its aftermath
by Phil Wilayto, Indymedia UK, 13 June 2009
I'm an Iranian and I'm sending this comment using my PC with a 3 GHz Intel P4.
There are millions of computers in Iran. What do you expect they use? In fact Intel has a larger market share than AMD in Iran.
a waste
I guess this means the missiles will cost the same but run at half the speed? How is that a bad thing?
why is it a surprise? iran has some of the brightest and best minds in technology. you think you can keep computer chips out of iran?
I believe it was general Patten who said (when the concentration and death camps were discovered in Germany... Document everything,,, take lots of pictures,, video tape it all,,, because someday some stupid son-of-a-bitch will say this was a myth and it never happened, we call it the Holocaust.65 + years Later that S.O.B happens to be the president of Iran,,,now with Missile Supercomputors and already threatened to whipe out Isreal, if that doesn't concern you,,, then this world is in a lot of trouble and in absolute denial.