MAROKO133 Update ai: China activates 1,240-mile-wide ‘giant computer’, offers 98% efficien

📌 MAROKO133 Update ai: China activates 1,240-mile-wide ‘giant computer’, offers 98

The world’s largest distributed AI computing pool has been activated in China, according to a report. The 1,243-mile-wide computing power pool could achieve 98% of the efficiency of a single data centre.

After the distant computing centers were connected, the systems work together almost as efficiently as a single giant computer.

Known as the Future Network Test Facility (FNTF), the system began operations on December 3. The large-scale, distributed AI-computing network links data centres spread across roughly 1,243-mile using a high-speed optical network, allowing them to operate almost like a single supercomputer.

Dedicated data highway

Liu Yunjie, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief director of the project, told China’s Science and Technology Daily that the implications of this dedicated data highway are revolutionary for scenarios with extremely high real-time demands, such as AI large model training, telemedicine and the industrial internet.

“Training a large model with hundreds of billions of parameters typically requires over 500,000 iterations. On our deterministic network, each iteration takes only about 16 seconds. Without this capability, each iteration would take over 20 seconds longer – potentially extending the entire training cycle by several months,” said Liu.

Project leaders report that the network achieves around 98 percent of the efficiency of a unified data-centre cluster, enabling it to support demanding workloads such as training large AI models, real-time industrial applications, and telemedicine. By synchronizing geographically distant computing resources, the hub is designed to reduce training time, lower costs, and make high-end AI development more accessible within China, according to a report.

Significant advantages

The step also fits into China’s broader strategy to build a nationwide computing-power platform, complementing other efforts to deploy data centres in energy-rich regions and invest in emerging technologies like photonic and quantum-enhanced chips. While the system promises significant advantages, its long-term performance under sustained load, energy demands, and security considerations will determine how transformative it ultimately becomes

The system is reportedly positioned to serve the national ‘East Data West Computing’ project.

Reports have revealed that the FNTF was first outlined in China’s “Medium- and Long-Term Plan for the Construction of Major National Science and Technology Infrastructure” in 2013.

Today, the facility spans 40 cities with a total optical transmission length exceeding 55,000km – enough to circle the equator 1½ times. Operating around the clock, the platform can simultaneously support 128 heterogeneous networks and run 4,096 service trials in parallel, boasting high throughput, high reliability and deterministic transmission capabilities, reported SCMP.

The system also supports other strategic goals, such as improving medical services by enabling remote diagnostics and enhancing industrial automation through real-time data processing across long distances. Although the facility promises substantial advantages, several uncertainties remain. Sustaining high efficiency across such vast distances will require exceptional network stability, and the energy demand of running multiple interconnected centres is likely to be significant.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com

📌 MAROKO133 Breaking ai: Researchers report first evidence of solar neutrinos flip

Scientists have recorded a rare interaction between solar neutrinos and carbon for the first time.

The result marks an important step in understanding how low-energy neutrinos behave inside matter.

The SNO+ detector in Canada captured the elusive signal after more than a year of data collection.

The Oxford-led team used the SNO+ detector at SNOLAB, located two kilometres (1.24 miles) underground in a working mine in Sudbury, Canada.

The depth shields the experiment from cosmic rays and background noise.

That protection allowed researchers to isolate extremely faint signals produced when neutrinos strike atomic nuclei.

Neutrinos remain among the most mysterious particles in the universe. They rarely interact with matter. Trillions pass through the human body each second.

They emerge from nuclear reactions, including those inside the Sun.

Detecting them requires patience, precision, and enormous shielding.

The SNO+ team focused on interactions with carbon-13, a rare form of carbon present in the detector’s liquid scintillator.

When a high-energy solar neutrino hits carbon-13, it can transform the atom into nitrogen-13.

The new nucleus decays about ten minutes later.

Researchers relied on a delayed-coincidence technique. They looked for an initial flash from the neutrino strike.

They then searched for a second flash minutes later as nitrogen-13 decayed.

That paired pattern helps distinguish genuine events from background signals.

The analysis identified 5.6 such events over 231 days from May 2022 to June 2023.

The number aligns with the 4.7 solar neutrino events expected during that period.

Rare reaction confirmed

Lead author Gulliver Milton, a PhD student at Oxford, called the detection a major achievement.

“Capturing this interaction is an extraordinary achievement. Despite the rarity of the carbon isotope, we were able to observe its interaction with neutrinos, which were born in the Sun’s core and travelled vast distances to reach our detector.”

The result also builds on decades of neutrino research. Co-author Professor Steven Biller noted the history behind the work.

“Solar neutrinos themselves have been an intriguing subject of study for many years, and the measurements of these by our predecessor experiment, SNO, led to the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics.”

He added that understanding has deepened so much that researchers can now use solar neutrinos as a “test beam” for rare atomic reactions.

Foundation for future studies

SNO+ repurposes the earlier SNO experiment, which first proved that neutrinos shift between three types as they travel from the Sun to Earth.

Dr Christine Kraus, a staff scientist at SNOLAB, highlighted how the team used the natural carbon-13 in the target material to measure this specific reaction.

“To our knowledge, these results represent the lowest energy observation of neutrino interactions on carbon-13 nuclei to date and provides the first direct cross-section measurement for this specific nuclear reaction to the ground state of the resulting nitrogen-13 nucleus.”

Researchers say the achievement opens new opportunities to study rare neutrino interactions.

It may also guide future detector designs as scientists push to understand how these ghostlike particles shape nuclear processes and the wider universe.

The study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com