Fujitsu and RIKEN Claim 1st Place in the Green500 with Prototype of Fugaku Supercomputer

November 18, 2019

TOKYO and WAKO, Japan, Nov. 18, 2019 — Fujitsu Limited and RIKEN today announced that a prototype of the supercomputer Fugaku(1) being jointly developed by the two parties took No.1 in the Green500, a global ranking based on the energy efficiency of supercomputers.

The ranking was announced today at SC19, an international conference on high-performance computing (HPC) in the U.S. The Green500 ranks the world’s top500 fastest computing supercomputers by power consumption and efficiency among the TOP500(2) supercomputers.

The system that topped the Green500 was manufactured by Fujitsu as a prototype of Fugaku and installed at the company’s Numazu Plant. Developed by Fujitsu, this system is equipped with 768 A64FX CPUs that support the Arm SVE (Scalable Vector Extension) instructions for the first time in the world.

This performance measurement demonstrated that Fugaku technologies have the world’s highest energy efficiency, achieving 1.9995 PFLOPS (petaflops) in calculation speed for simultaneous linear equations (LINPACK3) against 2.3593 PFLOPS in a peak performance, and 16.876 GFLOPS/W (gigaflops per watt) in a performance per 1 watt of power consumption.

The image of CPU A64FX. Image courtesy of Fujitsu

Going onwards, Fujitsu will continue to manufacture and install systems to complete Fugaku. The company will endeavor to apply the supercomputer’s energy saving performance to a wider range of customers, offering commercial models PRIMEHPC FX1000 and PRIMEHPC FX700 which have been developed utilizing Fugaku technologies.

As the main developer, RIKEN is striving to create one of the world’s most advanced general-purpose systems, proceeding with the development and deployment of Fugaku, which is planned for general operation starting around 2021. As an important research foundation supporting Society 5.0(4), Fugaku is expected to be used as a basis for new fields of application such as AI (artificial intelligence) and big data, in addition to simulations to improve drug discovery, disaster prevention and industrial competitiveness.

“This award means that we have achieved the world’s highest level of energy efficiency, which is one of the three major development goals of the Fugaku supercomputer: high application performance, energy efficiency and user-friendliness,” Naoki Shinjo, Corporate Executive Officer, Fujitsu Limited said. “Fugaku is a system equipped only with a general-purpose CPU, which can process various applications without using accelerators such as GPUs. In other words, in this ranking, it was verified that Fugaku technologies consume less power than other systems that use accelerators, and that they can perform applications with about 1/3 less energy than other systems that use only general-purpose CPUs.”

“Both the know-how we have accumulated over many years in developing CPUs, and our solid effort to optimize the system from the initial stage of design considering performance and power consumption, have contributed to this achievement,” Shinjo added. “We hope that Fugaku which combines versatility with energy efficiency, will be widely used as a supercomputer to realize Society 5.0.”

“With Fugaku, we succeeded in developing a general-purpose Arm CPU with the world’s highest energy efficiency, far exceeding our targets through Co-design,” Satoshi Matsuoka, Director, Riken-Center for Computational Science (R-CCS) said. “While GPU machines dominate high ranks, it is groundbreaking for general-purpose CPU machines to top the list. By becoming a new standard, general-purpose CPUs with different levels of energy efficiency are expected not only to generate revolutionary HPC results, but also to be applied to new technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence) and big data, which will realize Society 5.0.”

  • [1] The supercomputer Fugaku — Succeeding supercomputer K, Fugaku aims to contribute to Japan’s growth and produce world-leading results by solving social and scientific issues in the 2020s. Under the flagship 2020 project of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (the development of post-K) which started in FY 2014, RIKEN Computational Science and Research Center has developed and improved Fugaku with the aim of starting public utilization around 2021.
  • [2] TOP500 — A project that regularly ranks and evaluates the top 500 fastest computer systems in the world. Launched in 1993, it publishes a list of supercomputers twice a year.
  • [3] LINPACK — A program developed by Dr. J. Dongarra of the University of Tennessee in the U.S. to solve simultaneous linear equations with regular matrix computations. It is a benchmark program used to compile the TOP 500 list. It is easy to obtain performance close to the peak performance of hardware, and its calculation is simple, but its application range is wide.
  • [4] Society 5.0 — As first introduced in the Fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan, this is a proposal for “a human-centered society that achieves both economic development and the resolution of social issues through a highly integrated system of cyberspace (virtual space) and physical space (real space),” indicating the future society that Japan should aim for.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions, and services. Approximately 132,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (Code: 6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.0 trillion yen (US $36 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.

About RIKEN

RIKEN is Japan’s largest research institute for basic and applied research. Over 2500 papers by RIKEN researchers are published every year in leading scientific and technology journals covering a broad spectrum of disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and medical science. RIKEN’s research environment and strong emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration and globalization has earned a worldwide reputation for scientific excellence.


Source: Fujitsu and RIKEN 

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!

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

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from its predecessors, including the red-hot H100 and A100 GPUs. 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. While Nvidia may not spring to mind when thinking of the quant Read more…

2024 Winter Classic: Meet the HPE Mentors

March 18, 2024

The latest installment of the 2024 Winter Classic Studio Update Show features our interview with the HPE mentor team who introduced our student teams to the joys (and potential sorrows) of the HPL (LINPACK) and accompany 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 field was normalized for boys in 1969 when the Apollo 11 missi Read more…

Apple Buys DarwinAI Deepening its AI Push According to Report

March 14, 2024

Apple has purchased Canadian AI startup DarwinAI according to a Bloomberg report today. Apparently the deal was done early this year but still hasn’t been publicly announced according to the report. Apple is preparing Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimization algorithms to iteratively refine their parameters until Read more…

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

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named 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…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimizat Read more…

PASQAL Issues Roadmap to 10,000 Qubits in 2026 and Fault Tolerance in 2028

March 13, 2024

Paris-based PASQAL, a developer of neutral atom-based quantum computers, yesterday issued a roadmap for delivering systems with 10,000 physical qubits in 2026 a Read more…

India Is an AI Powerhouse Waiting to Happen, but Challenges Await

March 12, 2024

The Indian government is pushing full speed ahead to make the country an attractive technology base, especially in the hot fields of AI and semiconductors, but Read more…

Charles Tahan Exits National Quantum Coordination Office

March 12, 2024

(March 1, 2024) My first official day at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was June 15, 2020, during the depths of the COVID-19 loc Read more…

AI Bias In the Spotlight On International Women’s Day

March 11, 2024

What impact does AI bias have on women and girls? What can people do to increase female participation in the AI field? These are some of the questions the tech 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…

Analyst Panel Says Take the Quantum Computing Plunge Now…

November 27, 2023

Should you start exploring quantum computing? Yes, said a panel of analysts convened at Tabor Communications HPC and AI on Wall Street conference earlier this y 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…

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

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…

Training of 1-Trillion Parameter Scientific AI Begins

November 13, 2023

A US national lab has started training a massive AI brain that could ultimately become the must-have computing resource for scientific researchers. Argonne N 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…

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…

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…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire