Discover the top 10 global supersystems and the records achieved by the Six-Legged Dog system.
The ranking of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, updated annually by TOP500, is widely regarded as a benchmark for evaluating the most powerful computer systems in the world based on performance.
Its significance lies in showcasing technological advancements and the capabilities of leading supercomputers, highlighting which nations and institutions are at the forefront of computational power and innovation.
The 10 Most Powerful Supercomputers in the World
The 64th edition of the TOP500 has crowned El Capitan as the new number 1 among the most powerful supercomputers in the world.
This system, developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has dethroned Frontier, which held the number-one position for over two and a half years. El Capitan also set a new record for high-performance computing (HPC).
El Capitan is tasked with one of the agency’s most classified missions: ensuring that the American nuclear stockpile functions as intended.
“As NNSA’s first exascale computer, it represents a critical step in our efforts to ensure the safety and reliability of our nation’s nuclear stockpile without the need to resume underground nuclear testing,” said Corey Hinderstein of the National Nuclear Security Administration in a press conference before the announcement.
El Capitan, along with its sister system Tuolumne, will also support research in areas such as biology, weather forecasting, earthquake monitoring, disaster simulation, and artificial intelligence.
The ranking also recognizes the Frontier system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the Aurora system at Argonne Leadership Computing Facility in Illinois, which secured second and third place, respectively.
Here are the 10 most powerful supercomputers in the world as of November 2024:
- El Capitan, installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA
- Frontier, installed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Tennessee, USA
- Aurora, installed at Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, Illinois, USA
- Eagle, installed by Microsoft in its Azure cloud
- HPC6, installed at ENI SpA in Ferrera Erbognone, Italy
- Fugaku, installed at the RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS), Kobe, Japan
- Alps, installed at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), Switzerland
- LUMI, installed at the EuroHPC center at CSC, Finland
- Leonardo, installed at another EuroHPC site at CINECA, Italy
- Tuolumne, installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, USA
Fun fact: AMD and Intel processors dominate the systems in the top 10. Five supercomputers rely on AMD processors (El Capitan, Frontier, HPC6, LUMI, and Tuolumne), while three use Intel (Aurora, Eagle, Leonardo). Alps uses an NVIDIA processor, and Fugaku is based on ARM.
Meanwhile, China and the United States once again lead in terms of the number of entries on the entire TOP500 list. However, China’s representation has declined compared to previous years.
The United States added two systems to its total, bringing the count to 173. China reduced its entries from 80 to 63. Germany is quickly catching up with China, now boasting 41 systems on the list.
Original article published on Money.it Italy 2024-11-20 15:32:10. Original title: La classifica dei supercomputer più potenti al mondo. 5° posizione per ENI
