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new wisdom report

editor: taozi

[introduction to new wisdom]the world's first supercomputer based on arm architecture is finally retiring after completing its 6-year mission. this isambard 2, the most powerful supercomputer deployed in the uk, has helped the world promote research on simulated molecules and weather forecasting. the next generation of supercomputers has taken over.

the world's first supercomputer based on arm architecture has finally been retired.

in may 2018, this 10,000-core system isambard 2 was deployed for the first time.

it uses a 64-bit armv8 thunderx2 processor developed by cavium and manufactured by tsmc, plus a couple of nvidia p100 gpus.

the isambard 2 project is led by professor simon mcintosh-smith, head of the microelectronics group at the university of bristol.

he announced the news on social media.

moreover, the next generation isambard 3 supercomputer will be launched online using nvidia grace arm-based cpus provided by hpe.

it is said that the second-generation isambard supercomputer will be shut down at 9 a.m. local time on september 30, so users must delete data before the deadline.

the six-year mission has been completed, and the supercomputer has been honorably retired.

isambard 2 is not the first supercomputer to be retired in 2024.

the summit supercomputer at oak ridge national laboratory will also be retired in november this year.

this supercomputer was also built in 2018 and was subsequently replaced by the more powerful frontier supercomputer.

as we all know, the purchase cost of a supercomputer is as high as millions of dollars, and even the operating cost is very high.

however, as technology advances, some major technology manufacturers have to eliminate older equipment in order to keep up with the cutting edge, even if it still works well.

that's because the latest silicon chips offer better performance and efficiency, allowing researchers to make breakthroughs faster.

therefore, even if you invest again in building a new supercomputer, it is still worth the money.

isambard 3 next-generation supercomputer is ready

the new isambard 3 supercomputer is still based on the arm architecture, but this time it will be equipped with a 34,272-core nvidia grace cpu.

the first two of this supercomputing will be in may 2023.

isambard 3 is deployed at the bristol and bath science park in the uk and is expected to have six times the performance and energy efficiency of isambard 2.

it will be one of the most energy-efficient systems in europe and will power medical and scientific research.

it is reported that it is capable of reaching 2.7 petaflops (fp64) peak performance and consumes less than 270kw, ranking among the world's third most environmentally friendly non-accelerated supercomputers.

again, this project is led by the university of bristol (as part of the gw4 alliance) and also involves the universities of bath, cardiff and exeter.

in this regard, mohamed awad, arm’s senior vp infrastructure general manager, said that from climate change to medicine, supercomputing has enabled academic and industry leaders to address some of the world’s greatest challenges.

promote breakthroughs in life sciences, medicine and other fields

the creation of isambard 3 will help the scientific community achieve breakthroughs in ai, life sciences, medicine, astrophysics, and biotechnology.

it can train models with extremely complex structures, such as wind farms and fusion reactors, thereby helping researchers reveal new developments in clean and green energy.

at the same time, isambard 3 will also continue the previous generation's work of simulating molecular-level mechanisms to better understand parkinson's disease.

but also, to find new ways to treat osteoporosis and covid-19.

these intensive applications will be able to achieve maximum performance with the support of grace cpu.

simon mcintosh-smith, professor of high performance computing at the university of bristol, said:

isambard 3 application performance efficiency is 6 times that of its predecessor and is comparable to many of the fastest 50 top500 systems. it will provide scientists with a revolutionary new supercomputing platform to advance breakthrough research.

however, at present, the isambard 3 supercomputer has not entered the top500 most powerful supercomputer rankings, but it won the second place in the green500 rankings in june 24, becoming the most efficient supercomputer today.

in addition, the isambard 3 supercomputer will add 5,280 processors, increasing its performance by 32 times and potentially ranking in the top 10 of the top500 list in its next run.

top 500 supercomputers in the world, frontier ranks first

every year, the world's top 500 supercomputers list will announce the latest list of this year's supercomputers.

the 63rd top500 ranking shows that although frontier is no longer the only system on the list that calculates exascale floating point operations, it still takes the top spot.

another noteworthy point is that a new supercomputer has entered the top 10.

frontier is deployed at oak ridge national laboratory in tennessee, usa, and is still the most visually powerful system, with an hpl score of 1.206 exaflops/second.

the system has a total of 8,699,904 cpu and gpu cores and uses hpe cray ex architecture.

what's more, it features third-generation amd epyc cpus and amd instinct mi250x accelerators optimized for high-performance computing (hpc) and ai, and relies on cray's slingshot 11 network for data transfer.

in addition, the machine's energy efficiency ratio reached 52.93 gigaflops/watt, ranking frontier at 13th on the green500 rankings.

like the previous list, the aurora system located at argonne national laboratory in illinois, usa, ranked second in the top500.

although currently being debugged and not yet fully completed, aurora now becomes the second system to officially break the exascale barrier, with an hpl score of 1.012 exaflops/second.

this result is an improvement compared to the 585.34 petaflops of the previous list.

in addition, there are three american supercomputers in the top ten list - eagle, summit, and eos nvidia dgx superpod.

as mentioned at the beginning, the summit supercomputer will be retired this year.

there is also japan's famous supercomputer fugaku, which has occupied the top spot from june 2020 to november 2021.

deployed in kobe, japan, with an hpl score of 442 petaflops, it remains the highest-ranked system outside the united states.

it is worth mentioning that the only new system to crack the top ten, the alps computer from the swiss national supercomputing center (cscs), ranked sixth. the system has an hpl score of 270pflop/s.