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The Influence of HPC-ers: Setting the Standard for What’s “Cool”
Jan. 16, 2025

A look back to supercomputing at the turn of the century

When I first attended the Supercomputing (SC) conferences back in the early 2000s as an IBMer working in High Performance Computing (HPC), it was obvious this conference was intended for serious computer science researchers and industries singularly focused on pushing the boundaries of computing. Linux was still in its infancy. I vividly remember having to re-compile kernels with newly released drivers every time there was a new server that came to market just so I could get the system to PXE boot over the network. But there was one …


The Evolution, Convergence and Cooling of AI & HPC Gear
Nov. 7, 2024

Years ago, when Artificial Intelligence (AI) began to emerge as a potential technology to be harnessed as a powerful tool to change the way the world works, organizations began to kick the AI tires by exploring it’s potential to enhance their research or business. However, to get started with AI, neural networks needed to be created, data sets trained, and microprocessors were needed that could perform matrix-multiplication calculations ideally suited to perform these computationally demanding tasks. Enter the accelerator.


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Cray-1 50th Anniversary Commemorated on Dollar Coin

The United States Mint has released the designs for the 2026 American Innovation $1 Coin Program, and one of them honors a monumental moment in the history of HPC: the announcement of the Cray-1 supercomputer. Released earlier this week, the 2026 coin designs honor, among other states, Wisconsin, the home of Cray Research and the birthplace, […]

The post Cray-1 50th Anniversary Commemorated on Dollar Coin appeared first on Inside HPC & AI News | High-Performance Computing & Artificial Intelligence.

OpenAI and Thermo Fisher Scientific in Life Sciences Collaboration

WALTHAM, Mass. — Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO) announced AI utilization plans with OpenAI in a collaboration intended to improve drug development. As part of this collaboration, Thermo Fisher is embedding Open AI APIs into areas of its business that range from product development, service delivery, customer engagement and operational efficiency. The collaboration will: […]

The post OpenAI and Thermo Fisher Scientific in Life Sciences Collaboration appeared first on Inside HPC & AI News | High-Performance Computing & Artificial Intelligence.

The Third Time Will Be The Charm For Broadcom Switch Co-Packaged Optics

If Broadcom says that co-packaged optics is ready for prime time and can compete with other ways of linking switch ASICs to fiber optic cables, then it is very unlikely that Broadcom is wrong.

The Third Time Will Be The Charm For Broadcom Switch Co-Packaged Optics was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

How HPC Is Igniting Discoveries In Dinosaur Locomotion – And Beyond

In the basement of Connecticut’s Beneski Museum of Natural History sit the fossilized footprints of a small, chicken-sized dinosaur.

How HPC Is Igniting Discoveries In Dinosaur Locomotion – And Beyond was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

TOP500 News


The Influence of HPC-ers: Setting the Standard for What’s “Cool”
Jan. 16, 2025

A look back to supercomputing at the turn of the century

When I first attended the Supercomputing (SC) conferences back in the early 2000s as an IBMer working in High Performance Computing (HPC), it was obvious this conference was intended for serious computer science researchers and industries singularly focused on pushing the boundaries of computing. Linux was still in its infancy. I vividly remember having to re-compile kernels with newly released drivers every time there was a new server that came to market just so I could get the system to PXE boot over the network. But there was one …


El Capitan achieves top spot, Frontier and Aurora follow behind
Nov. 18, 2024

The 64th edition of the TOP500 reveals that El Capitan has achieved the top spot and is officially the third system to reach exascale computing after Frontier and Aurora. Both systems have since moved down to No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively. Additionally, new systems have found their way onto the Top 10.


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06/2025 Highlights

The El Capitan system at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, USA remains the No. 1 system on the TOP500. The HPE Cray EX255a system was measured with 1.742 Exaflop/s on the HPL benchmark. El Capitan has 11,039,616 cores and is based on AMD 4th generation EPYC™ processors with 24 cores at 1.8 GHz and AMD Instinct™ MI300A accelerators. It uses the HPE Slingshot interconnect for data transfer and achieves an energy efficiency of 58.9 Gigaflops/watt. The system also achieved 17.41 Petaflop/s on the HPCG benchmark which makes it the new leader on this ranking as well

Frontier is the No. 2 system in the TOP500. This HPE Cray EX system was the first US system with a performance exceeding one Exaflop/s. It is installed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, USA, where it is operated for the Department of Energy (DOE). It currently has achieved 1.353 Exaflop/s using 8,699,904 cores. The HPE Cray EX architecture combines 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ CPUs optimized for HPC and AI, with AMD Instinct™ 250X accelerators, and a Slingshot interconnect.

Aurora is currently the No. 3 with a HPL score of 1.012 Exaflop/s. It is installed at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, Illinois, USA, where it is also operated for the Department of Energy (DOE). This new Intel system is based on HPE Cray EX - Intel Exascale Compute Blades. It uses Intel Xeon CPU Max Series processors, Intel Data Center GPU Max Series accelerators, and a Slingshot interconnect.

JUPITER Booster is the new No. 4 system. It is installed at EuroPHC/FZJ in Jülich, Germany where it is operated by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre. It is based on the Eviden’s BullSequana XH3000 direct liquid cooled architecture which utilizes Grace Hopper Superchips. It is currently being commissioned and achieved a preliminary HPL value of 793.4 Petaflop/s on a partial system.

Eagle the No. 5 system is installed by Microsoft in its Azure cloud. This Microsoft NDv5 system is based on Xeon Platinum 8480C processors and NVIDIA H100 accelerators and achieved an HPL score of 561 Petaflop/s.

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