China spawns an x86 supercomputing monster, with an AMD connection

Chipmaker Hygon, which recently teased a 128-core, 512-thread CPU, merges with server-maker Sugon

China has spawned a supercomputing contender.

This story starts in 2016 when AMD licensed its first-generation Zen CPU design and the x86-64 architecture it used to a Chinese outfit called Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co - aka “Hygon”. The two companies planned to develop server-grade SoCs for the Chinese market.

In the years since, Hygon used that license to develop a range of modest server CPUs called Dhyana. Linux kernel developers added support for those chips, and – per China’s policy of encouraging use of home-grown products – so did Chinese giants like Tencent.

The other player in this tale is Sugon, aka Dawning Information Industry Company Limited, a server-and-supercomputer-maker that has used Dhyana silicon, including in a machine that once made it into 38th place on the Top 500 list that ranks Earths mightiest computing machines.

Sugon was Hygon’s largest shareholder and on Monday the two companies announced they will merge by swapping stock.

China will therefore emerge with an integrated server-and-CPU-maker capable of producing substantial supercomputers.

And perhaps even extraordinary machines, too, because Chinese media recently reported Hygon is set to release a CPU with 128 cores and capable of running 512 threads - four threads for each core.

Intel and AMD long ago delivered simultaneous multithreading (SMT) that runs two threads per core. Rumors have suggested the x86 chipmakers might consider SMT4 in future, but it hasn’t happened.

IBM has been there for years - since 2010's version 7 of its POWER architecture - and remains the only enterprise hardware vendor to designs its own CPUs and servers that use them (Fujitsu’s heading in that direction too).

However the idea of designing complementary processors and servers is popular among hyperscalers. AWS, Microsoft and Google have all done it, and so have China’s Alibaba and Huawei.

A combined Hygon/Sugon would certainly attract attention from many Chinese buyers.

The rest of the world may be less enthusiastic, as the USA’s Bureau of Industry and Security added both companies to its Entity List that names outfits suspected of conducting activities contrary to national security and foreign policy.

Such activities may be the point of the merger: China’s government has laid plans to use AI and big data to improve all aspects of society, including its military. ®

Updated at 23:15 UTC May 29

To add details about IBM's use of SMT 4 in its POWER architecture.