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How do you make the most powerful supercomputer in the world even faster? It’s simple, really. Just keep adding components! When Japan’s K supercomputer assumed the top slot back in June, it did so thanks to a team of 68,544 CPUs working in tandem to achieve a maximum LINPACK performance rating of 8.162 petaflops. Since then, the last of its 864 racks have been installed – and that extra firepower has boosted K’s performance over the 10 petaflop barrier.
All in all, the final configuration ended up with a total of 88,128 CPUs, which managed to achieve a measured LINPACK performance of 10.51 petaflops in just around 29.5 hours, with an execution efficiency percentage of 93.2 percent (a 0.2 percent improvement over the June benchmark scores). In layman’s terms, K kicks ass, and it kicks ass harder than any other computer on the planet.
Fujitsu, who developed the system with Japan’s RIKEN institute, bragged in its press release that K isn’t just brawn; it’s also remarkably resilient for a supercomputer. “It also demonstrated an extraordinary level of stability for one of the world's largest-scale systems, as the overall system comprised of 88,128 CPUs ran without a single failure for 29 hours and 28 minutes.”
RIKEN and Fujistu say they are still tweaking the operating system, compiler, and other system software for even better performance in the future. They hope to have it ready for actual research use (and not just benchmark-shattering LINPACK tests) by November of next year.
Update: In the original publication, Toshiba was incorrectly identified as having developed the system alongside RIKEN. The article was altered to give proper credit to Fujitsu.
Comments are closed on this article
msapartners
November 03, 2011 at 2:32pm
The article incorrectly states that Toshiba developed the K computer with RIKEN. It was actually Fujitsu that developed the system together with RIKEN, not Toshiba. Toshiba has played no role in the development.
Ruhetag
November 03, 2011 at 12:40pm
Can it calculate how to save the €urozone from the lazy GR€€KS?
Ruhetag
November 03, 2011 at 12:39pm
Can it calculate how to save the €urozone from the lazy GR€€KS?
dashize
November 03, 2011 at 11:47am
LMAO Arch was just getting to post the same thing .. what are the plans for this behemoth, weather patterns traffic patterns,medical?????
Brad Chacos
November 03, 2011 at 12:01pm
Looks like pretty heady stuff, including earthquake prediction (it is in Japan). From the press release:
- Analyzing the behavior of nanomaterials through simulations and contributing to the early development of such next-generation semiconductor materials, particularly nanowires and carbon nanotubes, that are expected to lead to future fast-response, low-power devices.
- Predicting which compounds, from among a massive number of drug candidate molecules, will prevent illnesses by binding with active regions on the proteins that cause illnesses, as a way to reduce drug development times and costs (pharmaceutical applications).
- Simulating the actions of atoms and electrons in dye-sensitized solar cells to contribute to the development of solar cells with higher energy-conversion efficiency.
- Simulating seismic wave propagation, strong motion, and tsunamis to predict the effects they will have on human-made structures; predicting the extent of earthquake-impact zones for disaster prevention purposes; and contributing to the design of quake-resistant structures.
- Conducting high-resolution (400-m) simulations of atmospheric circulation models to provide detailed predictions of weather phenomena that elucidate localized effects, such as cloudbursts.
std error
November 03, 2011 at 11:10am
Cool, must be nice to be scientist with this baby in your toolbox.
arch20002013
November 03, 2011 at 10:54am
But, can it play crysis? Had to ask :). Seriously though, that could do some major work for MaximumPC Folding At Home. Not sure they will do that though, but we can wish
