The new LUMI Supercomputer at the Science Information Technology Center (CSC) in Kajaani, Finland ranked third on the latest list of the world's fastest supercomputers, the 500th. LUMI achieved 151.9 petaflops High Performance Linpack (HPL) performance in tests.
The No. 1 spot is now held by the Frontier system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the US. The 59th edition of the TOP500 revealed the Frontier system to be the first true exascale machine with an HPL score of 1.102 Exaflop/s.
Fastest Supercomputer in Europe
The number 3 position makes LUMI the fastest supercomputer in Europe. LUMI is a unique project due to its size, environmental friendliness and common European nature, and is hosted by a consortium of ten countries. The LUMI consortium expects that LUMI's considerable computing power will be used for socially significant RDI activities.
"LUMI is an enabler of scientific breakthroughs and industrial innovations, as well as a platform for research collaboration that enables learning and competence development, as well as the development of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum technology. Together, these factors make LUMI key to Europe's future success and strategic independence", says Kimmo Koski , CEO of CSC, which hosts LUMI. LUMI's LUMI-G graphics processor section has not yet been fully installed for this Top500 list - expected HPL performance will increase to 375 petaflops during June 2022.
Sustainable HPC
LUMI is not only a very efficient supercomputer, but also exceptionally environmentally friendly. It runs on 100% renewable hydropower, uses free cooling and includes an advanced waste heat recovery system - waste heat is used in the local district heating network. The LUMI system is supplied by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and is based on the HPE Cray EX supercomputer. "The LUMI supercomputer is a major achievement for Europe, opening up opportunities for innovation in critical research areas such as drug development, healthcare, weather forecasting and artificial intelligence projects and boosting economic growth in Europe and companies," said Justin Hotard, vice president and general manager at HPE.
"It is an honor to partner with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, CSC and AMD to build hardware based on the HPE Cray EX supercomputer, enabling the next generation of high-performance computing performance and artificial intelligence. We are celebrating this significant performance milestone for LUMI and look forward to many more milestones in the future", Hotard continues.
Top 10 Supercomputers
- Frontier is the new No. 1 system in the TOP500. This HPE Cray EX system is the first US system with a peak performance exceeding one ExaFlop/s. It is currently being integrated and tested at the ORNL in Tennessee, USA, where it will be operated by the Department of Energy (DOE). It currently has achieved 1.102 Exaflop/s using 8,730,112 cores. The new HPE Cray EX architecture combines 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ CPUs optimized for HPC and AI with AMD Instinct™ 250X accelerators and Slingshot-11 interconnect.
- Fugaku, now the No. 2 system, is installed at the RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS) in Kobe, Japan. It has 7,630,848 cores which allowed it to achieve an HPL benchmark score of 442 Pflop/s. This puts it 3x ahead of the No. 3 system in the list.
- The new LUMI system, another HPE Cray EX system installed at EuroHPC center at CSC in Finland, is the new No. 3 with a performance of 151.9 Pflop/s just ahead of No 4. The European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) is pooling European resources to develop top-of-the-range Exascale supercomputers for processing big data. One of the pan-European pre-Exascale supercomputers, LUMI, is in CSC's data center in Kajaani, Finland.
- Summit, an IBM-built system at ORNL in Tennessee, USA, is now listed at the No. 4 spot worldwide with a performance of 148.8 Pflop/s on the HPL benchmark which is used to rank the TOP500 list. Summit has 4,356 nodes, each housing two Power9 CPUs with 22 cores and six NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs, each with 80 streaming multiprocessors (SM). The nodes are linked together with a Mellanox dual-rail EDR InfiniBand network.
- Sierra, a system at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA, USA, is at No. 5. Its architecture is very similar to the #4 systems Summit. It is built with 4,320 nodes with two Power9 CPUs and four NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs. Sierra achieved 94.6 Pflop/s.
- Sunway TaihuLight is a system developed by China's National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology (NRCPC) and installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, China's Jiangsu province, is listed at the No. 6 position with 93 Pflop/s.
- Perlmutter at No. 7 is based on the HPE Cray "Shasta" platform, and a heterogeneous system with AMD EPYC based nodes and 1536 NVIDIA A100 accelerated nodes. Perlmutter achieved 64.6 Pflop/s
- Now at No. 8, Selene is an NVIDIA DGX A100 SuperPOD installed inhouse at NVIDIA in the USA. The system is based on an AMD EPYC processor with NVIDIA A100 for acceleration and a Mellanox HDR InfiniBand as network and achieved 63.4 Pflop/s.
- Tianhe-2A (Milky Way-2A), a system developed by China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) and deployed at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou, China is now listed as the No. 9 system with 61.4 Pflop/s.
- The Adastra system installed at GENCI-CINES is new to the list at No. 10. It is the third new HPE Cray EX system and the second fastest system in Europe. It achieved 46.1 Pflop/s.
Other TOP500 Highlights
Once more, AMD processors seem to be a preferred technology for HPC systems. Frontier utilizes 3rd Gen AMD EPYC CPUs optimized for HPC and AI. The No. 3 LUMI system also relied on AMD 3rd Gen EPYC processors, while No. 7 Permutter used AMD EPYC 7763 processors and No. 8 Selene used AMD EPYC 7742 processors.
Another point reminiscent of most recent TOP500 lists is the fact that China and the United States are the two countries with the most entries on the list. While China stagnated at 173 systems, the United States dropped from 150 systems to 126. Still, these two countries make up for nearly two-thirds of the supercomputers on the TOP500.
While there was some change in terms of system interconnects, the same trends as last list continue to hold. Ethernet still won out with 226 machines, but this was a drop from 240 machines on the last list. Infiniband accounted for 196 on the current list, which increased from 180 previously. Omnipath stayed consistent with 40 machines on the list, while custom interconnects dropped from 34 connections in the last list to 32 connections on the current one. Like the last list, there were only 6 systems with proprietary networks.
GREEN500 Results
The system to claim the No. 1 spot for the GREEN500 is the Frontier Test & Development System (TDS) at ORNL in the US. With 120,832 total cores and an HPL benchmark of 19.2 PFlop/s, the Frontier TDS machine is basically just one rack identical to the actual Frontier system. Therefore, it makes sense that it is outmatched by Frontier’s 7,733,248 cores and HPL benchmark of 1.102 Exaflop/s. However, Frontier TDS has some impressive efficiency capabilities. With a power efficiency of 62.8 gigaflops/watt, Frontier TDS is the clear leader of the GREEN500.
Continuing with this trend, and perhaps even redefining it, is the original Frontier system at ORNL in the US. This machine earned the highest spot on the TOP500 list and was still able to take the No. 2 spot on the GREEN500. This system is able to produce a whopping 1.102 Exaflop/s HPL benchmark score while keeping its power efficiency at 55.23 gigaflops/watt. Considering this machine was able to stay competitive on the GREEN500 while becoming the first exascale system shows how energy efficiency is becoming a top priority for HPC facilities.
The No. 3 spot was taken by the LUMI system, which is quite an accomplishment for the newcomer. Despite being the largest system in Europe, LUMI has an impressive power efficiency rating of 51.63 gigaflops/watt. In fact, LUMI is part of a wider trend in HPC that is proving that power doesn’t have to be sacrificed in the name of efficiency.
The No. 4 spot was held by Adastra, an HPE Cray EX system at GENCI-CINES that took the No. 10 spot on the TOP500. It’s also the second fastest in Europe and has an efficiency rating of 50.03 gigaflops/watt. Last year’s winner of the GREEN500 has moved down to the No. 5 spot, as the MN-3 system from Preferred Networks in Japan received a power efficiency rating of 40.90 gigaflops/watt. This is an improvement over the system’s previous score of 39.38 gigaflops/watt.
