US export restriction on supercomputers limits to be loosened to 20 GTOPs in August

Q: There was a news report today that China is using U.S. supercomputers to do tests or simulations of warhead detonations. Can you comment on that?

Bacon: Well, as you know because you cover the intelligence community, we have a rigid policy of not commenting publicly on alleged intelligence reports. This was allegedly an intelligence report, and I can't comment on it for that reason. I can tell you that we have strict rules for processing computer exports to foreign countries, including China. And there are -- these rules are administered by the Commerce Department. We have a vote, obviously, in whether exports take place.

Right now the rules limit -- the rules divide computers according to speed, to categories according to speed, and speed is measured in MTOPS, which stands for Millions of Technical (sic) [Theoretical] Operations Per Second.

Countries are divided into categories. Tier 1 countries don't have any limits.

These would be NATO allies, for instance; there's no limit on the speed of computers they can buy from the United States. China is a Tier 3 country and, therefore, there are limits of 6,500 MTOPS that can be shipped to China, without a license, to a military buyer -- 6,500 MTOPS. For civilian buyers, the limit is 12,300 MTOPS. Those limits are about to increase; they're about to increase to 12,500 MTOPS for military buyers, that is computers below that level cannot -- (interrupted by staff.) "Theoretical," I'm supposed to say -- Millions of Theoretical Operations Per Second, rather than "technical" operations. They could be technical operations -- (laughter) -- but they're in theory, computers can operate this fast.

Thank you, Adm. Quigley.

So we're going back to MTOPS levels. Right now you have to have a license to export a computer faster than 6,500 MTOPS to a military buyer in China, or a license to export a computer faster than 12,300 MTOPS to a civilian buyer in China. Those limits are about to increase to 12,500 MTOPS for military buyers, and 20,000 MTOPS for civilian buyers in China. That will happen in August; August 15th those limits will increase.

The Commerce Department handles the licensing of computers, computer sales to China, if they exceed these MTOPS limits. And the Commerce Department also is in charge of monitoring end use.

The fastest computer we have ever licensed for export for China is approximately 31,000 MTOPS, and this was a computer that was sold to their version of NOAA, the National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration; in other words, their weather bureau, their meteorological agency.

Just to put this in context, most of the nuclear weapons in America's arsenal today could be designed with the types of computers, high-level computers, you could buy at CompUSA.

There's been such a dramatic improvement in computational speed and power that you can design nuclear weapons today with the type of desktop you might buy over the Internet from Dell Computers or an IBM or any other type of commercially available in-your-home-type computer that we all use on a daily basis.

And finally, just to add some context, the Chinese have worked hard to develop an indigenous computer industry to build high- performance computers. And in this day and age, that's not hard to do because you can buy a lot of smaller computers and string them together in parallel processing arrangements, and develop a large computational capacity by putting together or linking together a lot of smaller units.

Q: So does this report exist? (Laughter.)

Bacon: I think you know the answer to that question; we don't comment on intelligence.

Yes?

Q: Well, I thought the question or the problem of concern about alleged misuse or whatever of supercomputers was not so much in designing nuclear weapons as in analyzing the complex phenomenon, "What happens when these things goes off?" And that, presumably, is why you need something more than a Dell computer to do that.

Bacon: That is true. You need faster more capable computers to do that.

Q: So then the concern is that's the point of the --

Bacon: Well our primary concern, as a country, of course is nuclear-weapon design and proliferation. Obviously, people who design nuclear weapons have to be able to simulate in some way their effects. And you're right, that you do need -- you need two things -- you need at least two things: The first is you need vast computational capacity; and secondly, you need very sophisticated, complex software.

Yes?

Q: Are you saying then that you're not concerned about exports of computers, at least within that new range of -- what is it? -- 12,500 MTOPS to China? Is that --

Bacon: I am saying we have a national policy, administered by the Commerce Department, that governs computer exports.

It divides the world into four tiers, and it sets different standards for each tier. For instance, tier four includes North Korea and Iraq, Iran and other countries to which we don't export computers. Cuba. Tier three, which includes China and Russia and a number of other countries, sets limits, as does tier two, but they are different limits.

We are concerned about allowing computer exports above certain speeds. that's why we have a licensing procedure, and we have a process within the government to examine applications to sell high- speed computers to countries like China, and the Defense Department participates in that process. If somebody applies to sell a high- speed computer to China higher than the levels I gave earlier, 6500 MTOPS for a military buyer, a license is required. As a matter of policy, I don't believe we have approved any licenses for computers above the limits set in the policy for the military. In other words, we have not given exception, or a license, to ship U.S.-made computers faster than 6500 MTOPS, the current level, to military buyers.

As I said, the fastest computer we've shipped is the 3100 (sic) [31, 000] MTOPS that went to its meteorological bureau that was licensed by the Commerce Department, and it's up to the Commerce Department to check on the end use of that computer to make sure it's used the way the Chinese say it's supposed to be used.

Yeah, Bill.

Q: On the same basic topic but down a little different path, I would ask, is the Defense Department policy, or strategy, at this time to continue to develop a hybrid or a more effective nuclear weapon through Los Alamos and the other facilities? And is it something that would be in our best interest, with the secrets that have gone from Los Alamos, to develop nuclear devices that were more advanced than those whose secrets are out?

Bacon: That's a complex question. I'm not an expert on nuclear weapons design.

I can tell you that our primary energy right now is on something called the Stockpile Stewardship Program that involves setting up, using computers to monitor the reliability of the nuclear weapons that we already have in existence.

And the reason that we need to do that is, of course, we've signed up to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bans the test of nuclear weapons to monitor their reliability over time. And therefore we are developing a very complex computer-demanding system for monitoring through simulations and other measurements the reliability of our stockpile.

Q: Doesn't the nuclear deterrence of the United States depend upon having superior weapons as well as superior delivery vehicles and everything else?

Bacon: Well, we believe we do have superior weapons and superior delivery vehicles, and we believe that they're highly reliable and ready to use if called upon. We hope they aren't, but we believe that they are sophisticated and reliable.

Yes.

Q: If you're concerned about selling fast computers to China, why are you doubling the speed thresholds?

Bacon: Well, I think anybody who reads computer magazines or listens to ads knows that computers are expanding in capability rapidly every year. I mean, if you go compare the current Pentium chips to the earlier models, you can see how much faster they are. I think that Intel is coming out with a new chip later this year called the Itanium, I believe, that's going to be much faster than current chips. So there's a degree beyond which you can't control this stuff, because anybody -- these chips are widely available. Japan makes supercomputers and sells them. We make supercomputers.

It turns out that, you know, a supercomputer today, top of the line supercomputer probably operates in the range of hundreds of thousands of MTOPS.

So we have very, very capable supercomputers that are much, much faster than anything we allowed to be sold under a licensing procedure or without a license. So a lot of this is just accepting the technological imperative, which is computers become faster, more capable with more memory every month.

Q: A related question. You talk about the Commerce Department being responsible for the end use of -- the enforcement of (inaudible). I didn't ever hear you say what they -- whether they feel that any of these have been diverted.

Bacon: Well, I'm not going to comment on anything that might deal with intelligence reports.

Q: Oh, no, I'm talking about the story -- I'm just wondering, in monitoring the end use of these computers, do they feel that they know where they all are, they're where they're supposed to be, or do you not know?

Bacon: Well, I think you -- that would be a more appropriate question to the Commerce Department.