Less than five months after the Central Weather Administration (CWA) inaugurated its sixth-generation high-performance computer, its computing power is already falling short. In response, President William Lai stated on July 16, "To achieve great things, one must first sharpen their tools," pledging full government support for the construction of seventh to ninth-generation high-performance computers over the next nine years.
Activated on February 26, 2024, the sixth-generation computer uses the Fujitsu FX1000 model, built with 7-nanometer Arm architecture chips from TSMC.
AI-powered weather forecast
Equipped with 192 Nvidia A100 graphics processing units for AI applications, the system boasts a performance capacity of 10 petaflops, seven times greater than its predecessor.
This power is equivalent to about 46,000 desktop computers and ranks 69th among the world's top 500 high-speed computing systems.
"We are using weather data from around Taiwan to train the AI system and develop a high-resolution weather forecast model applicable nationwide," CWA Administrator Cheng Chia-ping said at the February inauguration ceremony.
Funding required for upgrade
However, the system does not use the latest GPUs, falling behind current standards. It can only predict typhoon dynamics up to 10 days in advance and has a horizontal resolution of 1 kilometer for regional numerical forecasting models.
Past experiences have shown that meteorological high-performance computer simulations can predict rainfall timing and volume, enabling water management agencies to prepare for floods or droughts and assisting the government in responding to extreme climate crises.
Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Kuo-hsien previously stated that Taiwan's long-term inadequate meteorological budget negatively impacts related research and early warning systems, emphasizing the urgent need to secure funding for talent and equipment from the Executive Yuan.
President Lai announced the establishment of a "National Climate Change Response Committee" within the Presidential Office, committing to fully support the enhancement of the CWA's software, hardware, and personnel training. He hopes to harness the combined efforts of industry, government, academia, and research to ensure Taiwan is not left behind in facing rapidly changing extreme weather conditions.
The sixth-generation high-performance computer was built with a budget of NT$1.5 billion (US$48 million) from the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program. However, with the program completed following President Tsai Ing-wen's departure from office, future upgrades to hardware and software will require securing funds from other sources.
