After losing their title in 2020, the United States returned on May 30 at the head of the TOP500 ranking of the world’s fastest supercomputers. This list of the 500 most efficient systems on the planet was created by a group of researchers capable of precisely testing the capabilities of supercomputers. The American Frontier system, based on AMD components, exceeded the exaflop mark for the first time in terms of computing power. The previous supercomputer was half as powerful.
Capable of performing a billion billion calculations per second
Frontier, the American exascale supercomputer used by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, took first place on the TOP500 podium. This is the first supercomputer to exceed the exaflop of computing power. This means that it is capable of performing a quintillion operations per second, or a billion billion calculations.
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The researchers behind the TOP500 are testing supercomputers around the world. They use a performance test called LINPACK which accurately measures the speed of the systems being evaluated. Frontier can reach a processing speed of 1.1 exaflops per second according to the tests. Such power can be used to assess the spread of covid-19, for example by simulating the projection of droplets, or even helping the transition to cleaner energy sources.
” This is a proud moment for our country said Thomas Zacharia, director of the Oak Ridge lab in an online meeting. ” This reminds us that we can still pursue objectives that match our ambitions. »
The component manufacturer AMD has largely contributed to this success. The American company notably supplied the AMD EPYC 64C processors and the Instinct MI250X graphics cards which provide the necessary computing power. These components were installed in the 74 racks (lockers) that make up the Oak Ridge supercomputer.
China would also have its exascale supercomputers
From 2016 to 2018, China took the top spot in the TOP500 with its Sunway TaihuLight system. The United States returned to the race in 2019 with IBM’s Summit and Sierra systems taking the top two spots. They were then surpassed by the Japanese supercomputer Fugaku in 2020 which has a speed of 442 petaflops, less than half of Frontier.
Still, Frontier might not be the fastest current system. China would have two supercomputers which should normally be part of the TOP500. However, they have not been tested by the ranking organizers. In November 2021, a group of fourteen Chinese researchers received the Association for Computing Machinery’s Gordon Bell Prize, considered the Nobel Prize for supercomputers, for simulating a quantum computing circuit on their systems.
These two supercomputers are OceanLight, successor of Sunway TaihuLight and Tianhe-3, the last version of Tianhe-1A which had occupied the first place of the TOP500 in 2010. Their exact calculation speeds are not known but it would be two systems exascale in the same way as Frontier.
In a context of intense rivalry with the United States in the technology sector, China is increasingly discreet about promoting its advances in supercomputers. This competition does not only have negative effects for the two powers. It helps to intensify the development of new technologies and break down barriers, such as the exaflop for supercomputers.