Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Mr Osipov, do you have any letters this time?
Yury Osipov: Mr Prime Minister, I rarely bring letters to our meetings. But this is a special case. We're holding a general meeting on May 18 to hear reports on what's been done and to discuss several current issues, including the Academy's involvement in projects to develop innovative solutions for the modernization of the Russian economy.
I'd like to remind you that nine years ago you attended the opening of a supercomputer centre at the Academy of Sciences. It was the first interdepartmental supercomputer centre in Russia at that time. A lot of time has passed since then, and now supercomputer technology is quite widespread in Russia. The modeling you can do on these supercomputers is a great help in scientific and technological advancements, and they have practical applications in the defence industry, the economy, management, environmental protection and science. However, there is one obstacle standing in the way of the spread of these high-performance systems with traditional processors, which are available to us: They are rather expensive and they use a lot of energy.
Vladimir Putin: Expensive to use?
Yury Osipov: Yes, they're expensive to use. Also, the processors themselves are quite costly. In some other countries, scientists are working on alternative high-performance systems, including multi-core graphics cards. They are ten times cheaper and use ten times less energy. But they aren't widely used yet because of one major shortfall: The programming is very complex, and it's hard to adapt existing algorithms to them.
The Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics and the Quant R&D centre have developed a new type computer with a capacity of six teraflops. It's already up and running. It uses completely new architecture, both the hardware and the computing technology. And of course its costs much less, even less than graphics systems, and consumes much less energy. But the main thing is that our mathematicians were able to develop very effective algorithms with practical applications in the defence industry, including some major ones in aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, as well as in the exploration and production of hydrocarbons. This system is crucial for developing a new class of aircraft, the fifth-generation jets.
So we have a six-teraflop computer, and we will definitely be able to create a 100-teraflop machine by the end of this year. Everything is ready, but the project requires government support. A total of 65 million roubles will be needed to develop the 100-teraflop computer. If we have the necessary funding by the end of this year, we could start work on a petaflop computer. A petaflop is 1,000 trillion. It's sheer know-how. It's a completely original solution, and in my opinion we must not miss this opportunity. Could you issue an order to pay special attention to this issue?
Vladimir Putin: Okay, let's do it.