Supercomputers are complex and high-level computing systems that pack immense computing performance. Their performance gets measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS). These computers have many processing cores that produce massive performance output. Supercomputers are very important in computational and scientific research. They get generally used in large-scale research on quantum chemistry and physics, cosmology, meteorology, seismology. They are also used in nuclear studies and for defense purposes. Technological companies and institutions worldwide produce some of the most powerful supercomputers. These get ranked in the TOP500 list of most powerful supercomputers. According to the latest ranking, the Top 10 most powerful supercomputers are:
1. Fugaku
Fugaku tops the list of most powerful supercomputers according to the 58th annual edition of the TOP500. It has topped the list for the 4th consecutive term. It works on Fujitsu A64FX microprocessor based on ARM version 8.2A architecture. Fugaku has 7,630,848 CPU cores joined using the Torus interconnect D. It scored 442,010 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. It is located at the RIKEN Center (R-CCS) in Japan, jointly developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu. Fugaku is supposed to get used to discovering and studying mechanisms to tackle Covid-19.
2. Summit
Summit is the fastest supercomputer in the USA and is positioned second in the world according to the 58th annual edition of the TOP500. It works on the IBM POWER9 central processing unit coupled with NVIDIA Volta GV100 GPU. Summit has 2,414,592 CPU cores joined using Mellanox dual-rail EDR InfiniBand network. It scored 148,600 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. Built by IBM and gets located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA. Summit brings used for natural disasters and weather simulations. It has also been used in Genomics and physics.
3. Sierra
Sierra is the third-fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the 58th annual edition of the TOP500. Its system is similar to Summit as it works on IBM POWER9 central processing unit with NVIDIA Volta GV100 GPU. Sierra has 1,572,480 CPU cores connected using Mellanox dual-rail EDR InfiniBand network. It scored 94,640 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. It was built by IBM and is located in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA. It is used by the National Nuclear Security Administration of the USA. It has been used for defense purposes, primarily for ensuring the effectiveness and reliability of nuclear weapons developed by the USA.
4. Sunway TaihuLight
Sunway TaihuLight ranks 4th in the 58th annual edition of the Top500 list. It uses a Sunway SW26010 64-bit processor which has 10,649,600 cores. It remained at the top spot in two consecutive editions of the Top500 list. The latest edition scored 93,014.6 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. It is developed by the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology. It is located at the National Supercomputing Center in China. It is used in myriad fields such as the oil industry, medical research, and meteorology.
5. Perlmutter
Perlmutter was a new addition to the TOP10 list of TOP500 in June 2021. In the latest edition, it grabbed the 5th spot. It works on the AMD EPYC 7763 processor based on the HPE Cray EX235N “Shasta” platform. It is coupled with NVIDIA A100 SXM4 accelerated nodes. All the cores are linked together with the Slingshot-10 interconnect. Perlmutter scored 70,870 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. It is manufactured by HPE and is located at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, USA. Perlmutter has been used for research in nuclear fusion and cosmology.
6. Selene
Selene ranks 6th in the 58th edition of Top500. It has AMD EPYC 7742 CPU with 555,520 cores. An NVIDIA DGX A100 GPU powers it while the cores are interconnected with Mellanox HDR Infiniband. It achieved a score of 63,469 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. Selene is developed by NVIDIA and is located at the Argonne National Laboratory, USA. Selene has been used in quantum chemistry research and is currently being used to understand coronavirus.
7. Tianhe-2A
Tianhe-2A, also known as Milky Way-2A, ranks 7th in the latest Top500 list of supercomputers. It has an Intel Xeon E5-2692v2 CPU which has 4,981,760 cores interconnected with TH Express-2. It scored 61,444.5 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. Tianhe-2A is developed by the National University of Defense Technology and is located at the National Supercomputer Center, China. It is primarily used to ensure government security.
8. JUWELS Booster Module
JUWELS Booster Module ranks 8th in the 58th edition of Top500. It operates on AMD EPYC 7402 processor which has 449,280 cores. The cores are linked together by Mellanox HDR Infiniband/ ParTec ParaStation ClusterSuite. It achieved a score of 44,120 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. It is built by Atos and is deployed at the Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany. It is the most powerful European supercomputer used for research in particle physics and nuclear physics.
9. HPC5
Ranking number 9 in the TOP500 list is HPC5. It is a supercomputer working on Xeon Gold 6252 processor with 669,760 cores. It is coupled with NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPU. It scored 35,450 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. HPC5 is developed by Dell and is used by Eni S.p.A which is an Italian company. As claimed by the company, it is used to process subsoil data.
10. Voyager-EUS2
Voyager-EUS2 ranks 10th in the latest Top500 list. It works on an AMD EPYC 7V12 processor which has 253,440 cores. It also has NVIDIA A100 GPU. It scored 30,050 TFlop/s in the Linpack performance benchmark. It is a new addition to the Top10 list. It is manufactured by Microsoft Azure system and is located at the Microsoft Azure East US 2 site.
