Argonne’s 44-Petaflops ‘Polaris’ Supercomputer Will Be Testbed for Aurora, Exascale Era

By Tiffany Trader

August 25, 2021

A new 44-petaflops (theoretical peak) supercomputer is under construction at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. Called Polaris, this new supercomputing star has been selected to light the way to exascale and to Aurora, the exascale-class Intel-HPE system that’s had its delivery pushed to next year (2022).

Ahead of today’s official unveiling announcement, HPCwire spoke with Kalyan Kumaran, senior computer scientist and the director of technology at Argonne’s Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) about how the laboratory will be using the system as a stepping stone to Aurora and beyond.

Built by HPE and powered by AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPUs, Polaris will enable researchers and developers to test and optimize software codes and applications to address a range of AI, engineering, and scientific projects planned for the forthcoming Aurora supercomputer, a joint collaboration between Argonne, Intel and HPE.

The installation currently underway spans 280 HPE Apollo Gen10 Plus systems across 40 racks, aggregating a total of 560 AMD Epyc Rome CPUs and 2,240 Nvidia 40GB A100 GPUs with HPE’s Slingshot networking. As part of a planned upgrade, the second-gen Epyc Rome CPUs (32-core 7532 SKU) will be swapped out in March 2022 for third-gen Epyc Milans (the 32-core 7543 part). At the same time, Polaris will transition from the Slingshot 10 to Slingshot 11 fabric (the same as Aurora will use). The system uses air-cooled HGX “Redstone” boards with liquid-cooling employed by rear-door heat exchangers.

At 44-petaflops (double-precision, peak) Polaris would rank among the world’s top 15-or-so fastest computers. The system’s theoretical AI performance tops out at nearly 1.4 exaflops, based on mixed-precision compute capabilities, according to HPE and Nvidia.

Polaris will tie into ALCF’s two 100 PB globally accessible Lustre filesystems named Grand and Eagle, which are backed by HPE’s Cray ClusterStor E1000 platform. Installed in January of this year, each storage array controls 8,480 disk drives with a sustained transfer speed of 650 Gbps, according to the ALCF documentation.

The choice of the Apollo Gen10 Plus rather than the HPE Cray EX architecture was deliberate, owing to Gen10’s flexibility to support additional configurations. “Each of these chassis actually fits two (single-socket) nodes, and they do support other accelerators,” said Kumaran. “So in the future, we could have new Apollo chassis added to this configuration, which would support, say, Nvidia GPUs on one side and maybe some other GPUs on the other side. And in the future, they could be supporting other AI accelerators.”

This is one of the ways that Polaris may continue to be an avenue for future research work even after Aurora – a Cray EX design – is deployed, said Kumaran. The Argonne Lab has been something of a hot spot for exploring emerging AI hardware. Its AI test bed currently includes a Cerebras CS-1 system, a Graphcore Colossus GC2 system, a SambaNova DataScale machine and (coming in 2021) Groq accelerator hardware.

Aurora’s compute nodes will be equipped with two Sapphire Rapids processors and six Ponte Vecchio general-purpose GPUs. Source: Intel Corp.

Polaris will provide roughly four times as much compute power as Argonne’s 7-petaflops Linpack (11.7-petaflops peak) HPE/Cray XC40 Theta system, which was installed in late 2016 to be a companion and ramp machine for an earlier unrealized conception of Aurora (aka A18). At the beginning of this year, thanks to CARES Act funding, the lab added 24 Nvidia DGX A100 nodes to Theta, significantly boosting its capabilities.

With its heterogeneous CPU-GPU architecture (in a 1:4 ratio), Polaris is helping Argonne make the transition to the Intel-HPE Aurora system, which slipped from 2021 to 2022 on account of Intel roadmap delays (impacting Sapphire Rapids and Ponte Vecchio). Polaris will be used by researchers within the DOE’s Exascale Computing Project and the ALCF’s Aurora Early Science Program to start prepping their codes for Aurora.

“We looked at many possible solutions with Aurora in the back of our mind,” said Kumaran of the technology selection process. “We wanted something with multi-GPU node support. And we wanted something that would support some of the key programming models on Aurora, which is MPI, OpenMP, and also SYCL in DPC++ (the SYCL 2020 variant from Intel). We wanted these programming models supported, and Polaris offered that solution.

“It has multi GPU nodes. It supports the programming models. It’s got the same Slingshot interconnect that will be on Aurora. And our Early Science Program has applications in normally the traditional HPC simulation space, but also the data and learning space. So we wanted a number of optimized frameworks, optimized Python support, and things like that, that will be available on Aurora for these applications to make progress. And that’s available with the Nvidia and HPE solutions.”

Projects highlighted by Argonne include:

Advancing cancer treatment by accelerating research in understanding the role of biological variables in a tumor cell’s path by advancing the use of data science to drive analysis of extreme-scale fluid-structure-interaction simulations; and predicting drug response to tumor cells by enabling billions of virtual drugs to be screened from single to numerous combinations, while predicting their effects on tumorous cells.

Advancing the nation’s energy security, while minimizing climate impact with biochemical research through the NWChemEx project, funded by the DOE’s Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research. Researchers are solving the molecular problems in biofuel production by developing models that optimize feedstock to produce biomass and analyze the process of converting biomass materials into biofuels.

Expanding the boundaries of physics with particle collision research in the ATLAS experiment, which uses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, sited at CERN, near Geneva Switzerland. Scientists study the complex products from particle collisions in very large detectors to deepen our understanding of the fundamental constituents of matter, including the search for evidence of dark matter.

“Polaris is well equipped to help move the ALCF into the exascale era of computational science by accelerating the application of AI capabilities to the growing data and simulation demands of our users,” said Michael E. Papka, director at the ALCF. “Beyond getting us ready for Aurora, Polaris will further provide a platform to experiment with the integration of supercomputers and large-scale experiment facilities, like the Advanced Photon Source, making HPC available to more scientific communities. Polaris will also provide a broader opportunity to help prototype and test the integration of HPC with real-time experiments and sensor networks.”

The lab already has some experience with HPE systems infrastructure, including Slingshot and HPE Performance Cluster Manager (HPCM). A testbed rack called Crux includes AMD Rome processors, Slingshot technology and HPCM. “In that sense, Polaris is another testbed to continue testing HPCM at scale and getting ready for Aurora’s arrival,” said Kumaran, “not just on the applications side, but also being able to test the system software and Slingshot.”

A wider goal, long-sought and steadily inching forward, is cross-platform code portability. Argonne has researchers working with NERSC (Berkeley Lab) and Codeplay (prominent SYCL supporter) to port SYCL and DCP++ to the A100 GPU. “If people are porting code to Aurora using SYCL or DCP++, they will be able to continue to support that programming model and not have to rewrite to OpenMP or MPI or CUDA to use on Polaris,” said Kumaran. “And similarly, we’ve also explored supporting HIP on this platform (Polaris), and so if you have CUDA support, and you are developing with CUDA on Summit, or for future AMD-based platforms, with Frontier, then you can use that. And finally, we are also exploring SYCL and DCP++ for AMD GPUs [in collaboration with Oak Ridge and Codeplay]. And so if you’re looking for an alternate solution to CUDA and HIP on AMD GPUs and you want to run your DCP++ code, we have a proof-of-concept working on that.”

Polaris has been delivered and is currently being installed. Deployment for early science work related to exascale-readiness is expected in the first quarter of next year.

Polaris rendering.

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing power it brings to artificial intelligence.  Nvidia's DGX Read more…

Call for Participation in Workshop on Potential NSF CISE Quantum Initiative

March 26, 2024

Editor’s Note: Next month there will be a workshop to discuss what a quantum initiative led by NSF’s Computer, Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate could entail. The details are posted below in a Ca Read more…

Waseda U. Researchers Reports New Quantum Algorithm for Speeding Optimization

March 25, 2024

Optimization problems cover a wide range of applications and are often cited as good candidates for quantum computing. However, the execution time for constrained combinatorial optimization applications on quantum device Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at the network layer threatens to make bigger and brawnier pro Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HBM3E memory as well as the the ability to train 1 trillion pa Read more…

Nvidia Appoints Andy Grant as EMEA Director of Supercomputing, Higher Education, and AI

March 22, 2024

Nvidia recently appointed Andy Grant as Director, Supercomputing, Higher Education, and AI for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). With over 25 years of high-performance computing (HPC) experience, Grant brings a Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing po Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HB Read more…

Nvidia Looks to Accelerate GenAI Adoption with NIM

March 19, 2024

Today at the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia launched a new offering aimed at helping customers quickly deploy their generative AI applications in a secure, s Read more…

The Generative AI Future Is Now, Nvidia’s Huang Says

March 19, 2024

We are in the early days of a transformative shift in how business gets done thanks to the advent of generative AI, according to Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, codenamed Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the fi Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

Intel Won’t Have a Xeon Max Chip with New Emerald Rapids CPU

December 14, 2023

As expected, Intel officially announced its 5th generation Xeon server chips codenamed Emerald Rapids at an event in New York City, where the focus was really o Read more…

IBM Quantum Summit: Two New QPUs, Upgraded Qiskit, 10-year Roadmap and More

December 4, 2023

IBM kicks off its annual Quantum Summit today and will announce a broad range of advances including its much-anticipated 1121-qubit Condor QPU, a smaller 133-qu Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire