Best Supercomputers
Supercomputers could be key to giving companies an edge in AI over their competitors and helping them emerge as a leader.
In the tight and competitive race of AI development, developers are searching for new ways to give them the edge.
With Nvidia being a current AI leader due to it’s hardware offerings, some organisations are seeing high performance computing, supercomputers, as a way to gain technological advancement.
In fact, AI developer Elon Musk is doing just that as a way to make his Gen AI system Grok better than it’s competitors.
Although not all supercomputers are AI, many possess dual capabilities or can stand to be added with such solutions.
With this in mind, we examine the top 5 supercomputers that exemplify the pinnacle of computational prowess.
LUMI (HPE Cray)
LUMI, the Large Unified Modern Infrastructure supercomputer, stands as a statement to Europe’s Commitment to advancing high performance computing. Housed in Kajaani, Finland, this HPE Cray EX system boasts an impressive 362,496 cores and a theoretical peak performance exceeding 550 petaflops, securing it’s position as the fastest supercomputer in Europe as of January 2023.
At the heart of LUMI’s Architecture lies a powerful combination of 64-core AMD EPYC CPUs and AMD Radeon Instinct GPU’s Chosen primarily for their cost-effectiveness and Performance capabilities. The system’s 1.75 petabytes of RAM and 117 petabytes of storage, including a 7-petabyte flash partition, underscore it’s formidable data processing potential. Notably, LUMI’s environmental credentials are equally impressive, with it’s operations powered entirely by hydroelectric energy and it’s generated heat repurposed for local building heating, making it one of the world’s most eco-friendly supercomputers.
Leonardo (Atos)
Leonardo, the Italian aerospace and defence company, has partnered with Atos, a global leader in digital transformation to develop cutting edge supercomputing technology. The collaboration has yielded impressive results, with the creation of one of the Europe’s most powerful supercomputers, installed at Leonardo’s Genoa facility as part of the Leonardo lab’s initiative.
The supercomputer, developed in conjunction with Atos, boasts a remarkable computing power of over 5 petaflops, equivalent to 5 million billion floating point operations per second. it is one of the first in Europe to utilities the latest generation NVIDIA A100 accelerators, featuring more than 100 supercomputing units. The system’s storage capacity is equally impressive, at approximately 20 peatbyes. This technological marvel serves as the nerve centre for Leonardo’s research and development efforts supporting innovation across traditional sectors and fostering the development of new technologies.
Fugaku (Fujitsu)
Fujitsu’s Fugaku, the supercomputer named after Mount Fuji, has been making waces in the world of high performance computing since it’s debut in 2020. Developed jointly by RIKEN and Fujitsu, this petascale powerhouse boasts an impressive 7,630,848 cores and a peak performance of 537.21 petaflops. Fugaku’s heart lies in it’s A64FX processors, which are based on the ARM v8.2-A architecture and incorporate Scalable Vector Extensions (SVE) for enhanced computational capabilities.
What set’s Fugaku apart is not just it’s raw power, but it’s versatility. The system has consistently topped global rankings, including the TOP500, HPCG, HPL-AI, and Graph500, demonstrating it’s prowess across various computational tasks. It’s ability to deliver 2.0 exaflops in the HPL-AI benchmark showcases it’s potential for AI applications. Moreover, Fugaku’s energy efficiency is noteworthy, with a power consumption of 29,899.23 kW, reflecting the developer’s commitment to balancing performance with sustainability. This technology marvel has already been put to practical use, contributing to COVID-19 research and even powering the development of Japanese language AI models.
Aurora (Intel and HPE)
Intel and HPE have unveiled Aurora, a groundbreaking exascale supercomputer that stands as a testament to their collaborative prowess in high performance computing. Installed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, Aurora boasts an impressive array of hardware, including 10,624 compute blades equipped with 21,248 Intel Xeon CPU Max Series processors and a staggering 63,744 Intel Data Center GPU Max units. This colossal system, occupying a space equivalent to two professional basketball courts, is poised to deliver unprecedented computational power, with expectations of achieving more than 2 exaflops of theoretical peak performance.
Aurora’s capabilities extend far beyond raw processing power. The system incorporates over 1,024 storage nodes utilizing Intel’s distributed asynchronous object storage (DAOS), providing a whopping 220 PB of capacity at 32 TBps of total bandwidth. It’s unified memory architecture and HPE Slingshot 11 interconnect ensure seamless data flow across the vast network of processors. Notably, Aurora has already demonstrated it’s prowess by reaching 1.012 exaflops on 87% of the system, securing it’s position as the second-fastest supercomputer globally, just behind Frontier. This remarkable achievement underscores Aurora’s potential to revolutionize scientific research across various fields, from brain mapping and particle to fusion reactor simulations.
Frontier (HPE Cray)
Frontier, the HPE Cray supercomputer housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, stands as a testament to the pinnacle of high performance computing. This exascale behemoth, capable of performing more than a quintillion calculations per second, has held the top spot on the Top500 list since June 2022. AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct accelerators, connected via HPE’s Slingshot interconnect, drive Frontier’s impressive performance.
The system’s prowess extends beyond raw computational power. Frontier has demonstrated remarkable energy efficiency, leading the Green500 list with a performance of 62.68 gigaflops per watt. This achievement underscores the importance of balancing performance with sustainability in the era of exascale computing. Frontier’s infrastructure is equally impressive, boasting 74 HPE Cray EX cabinets, each weighing over 8,000 pounds, and utilizing 90 miles of networking cables. The supercomputer’s storage capabilities are equally formidable, with the Orion system providing 700 petabytes of capacity and peak write speeds exceeding 35 terabytes per second.