Medvedev Commands HPC to Happen in Russia

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday called for promoting the development of supercomputers in Russia, ITAR-TASS reported.

"We should stimulate the demand (for supercomputers) in every way not because it's fashionable, but because competitive products can't be created in any other way," he said at a meeting of the Security Council.

Medvedev said he believed that both the government and private businesses should invest in supercomputers. Medvedev also said most government officials and businessmen were not familiar with supercomputer technology and added that businesses often use outdated equipment.

Meanwhile, Arkady Dvorkovich, an assistant to the president, said the government would submit proposals on the development of supercomputers and their unification into a single national grid to the president within six weeks.

Dvorkovich also said a supercomputer with a capacity of 1 petaFLOPS might be created in Russia within 18 months.

Oh, Petaflop machines are sooooo easy.

Also, uh, I'm not exactly sure what use Russia would have for HPC assets. Miltech dev? Oil perhaps? Product development is...mostly - as in 99.999% - unrelated at all to HPC assets. oh well. This is probably another prestige project.