for the first time in nine years, japan has taken the number one place in a ranking of the world’s fastest supercomputers. developed by RIKEN and fujitsu, the fugaku system has moved IBM’s summit down to second place, which previously held the top spot on the TOP500 in 2019. 

japan's fugaku is now the fastest supercomputer in the world

 

installed at the RIKEN center for computational science (R – CCS) in kobe, japan, the fugaku system marks the successor to the K computer, which was previously crowned the world’s fastest back in 2011. as reported by TOP500, the new fugaku scored a linpack (HPL) result of 415.5 petaflops, which is 2.8 times faster than the nearest competitor, summit, that achieved 148.6 petaflops. powered by fujitsu’s 48-core A64FX SoC, fugaku has also become the first number one supercomputer to utilize ARM processors. furthermore, on HPCG (high performance conjugate gradient), fugaku reached 13,400 teraflops using 138,240 nodes, and on HPL-AI (the convergence of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence), the system scored 1.421 exaflops, which is the first time a computer has even earned an exascale rating on any list, using 126,720 nodes (via RIKEN).

 

set to be fully operational by april 2021, the development of fugaku is part of a national plan to help address social and scientific issues, including finding a treatment for COVID-19. the new supercomputer is already being used to run simulations to research how the virus is spread. as well as helping with the current global health pandemic, fugaku will also be applied to areas such as natural disasters, weather and climate forecasting, drug discovery, and the development of clean energy (via RIKEN).

 

in addition to taking the top spot on the TOP500, fugaku has also been crowned number one on both the HPCG and graph500, marking the first time in history a supercomputer has taken all three awards at the same time. the results were announced yesterday on june 22, 2020, at the ISC conference. 

 

 

 

project info:

 

name: fugaku

developed by: RIKEN and fujitsu

main image courtesy of RIKEN