Supercomputers are high-level computers used for managing very large databases or great amounts of computation. Tom Merritt lists the top five ranked supercomputers in the world, according to TOP500.
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HPE is building a supercomputer called LUMI in Finland, and it is expected to have peak performance of more than 550 petaflops, putting it at the top of the list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Let’s check in on the top supercomputers right now.
Twice a year since 1993, TOP500 has ranked the world’s supercomputers. Here are the top five supercomputers.
5. Tianhe-2A. This supercomputer, also known as Milky Way-2A, is located at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou. It’s a hybrid architecture employing Intel Xeon CPUs and custom-built Matrix-2000 coprocessors. Tianhe-2A tops out at 61.4 petaflops.
4. Sunway TaihuLight. It’s not just fast–it’s also energy-efficient. It can take almost any application you throw at it–at scale. Sunway TaihuLight reaches 93 petaflops.
3. The Sierra system. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory checks in with the Sierra system. It uses two Power9 CPUs and four NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs in each of its 4,320 nodes. It can achieve 94.6 petaflops.
2. IBM’s Summit. Summit also uses two 22-core Power9 CPUs and six NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs. Summit is running at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, making it the fastest in the US. It can reach 148.8 petaflops.
1. Fugaku. The reigning champ (until Finland gets its new HPE built) is Japan’s Fugaku. The supercomputer is powered by Fujitsu’s 48-core A64FX SoC, the first to reach number one using ARM. You can find it at RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS) in Kobe, Japan. It hits a lofty 415.5 petaflops.
Someday we’ll have implanted eyeballs that are more powerful than the Sunway TaihuLight. Imagine what will be on the top supercomputer list then.
This feature originally appeared in TechRepublic.
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