The Hong Kong Observatory has finally got its long-awaited Cray supercomputer, but the US government is insisting on strict security, including 24-hour surveillance by closed-circuit camera and access to only a handful of officers with security clearance to ensure that China does not try to use it for anything else. It’s all political. We need an export license from the US because it’s considered a hi-tech strategic commodity, said Observatory senior scientific officer in weather forecasting Chan Chik-cheung. Under the security regulations he is himself banned from using the computer, the first time such a senior officer has not been allowed to use observatory equipment. It will be kept behind a glazed wall and monitored by closed-circuit TV 24 hours a day. When someone goes in, someone else knows. I can see it, but not touch it, he said.
The Observatory will be using the Cray SV1 from Silicon Graphics to develop mathematical models for weather forecasting. The atmosphere is the most complicated system to model. If a supercomputer can model the atmosphere, you can use it to model anything, say a nuclear bomb, Chan noted. A report to the US Congress recently alleged that China has been stealing US nuclear weapons secrets and using Hong Kong as an underground conduit for them.
