Fujitsu Wins Hokkaido University Order for Large-Scale, Interdisciplinary Computing System

May 24, 2018

TOKYO, May 24, 2018 — Fujitsu today announced that it has received an order from the Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University for an interdisciplinary, large-scale computing system with a theoretical peak performance of 4.0 petaflops(1), consisting of a supercomputer system and a cloud system. The system is expected to begin operations in December 2018. The system’s supercomputer system is comprised of approximately 1,300 of Fujitsu’s x86 servers, including the latest model, the Fujitsu Server PRIMERGY CX2550 M4. The cloud system is equipped with x86 servers installed at Hokkaido University as well as multiple remote locations throughout Japan, now from Hokkaido to Kyushu, that connects to the SINET5(2) academic backbone network, making it a nationwide wide-area distributed cloud system. As such, it can be used for research relating to distributed systems, such as networks and the Internet of Things. In addition to using the system for R&D relating to computational science and computer science, the Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University will use it to provide computing resources to HPCI(3) and JHPCN(4), thereby broadly providing the system to researchers throughout Japan, including those at private companies, and contributing to advancements in all kinds of fields. With Japan’s top high-performance computing technology, Fujitsu will provide powerful support for the activities of the Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University as well as other research endeavors in Japan.

Background to the Deployment of the New System

Hokkaido University, the largest university in Hokkaido, is a national university that is driving education and research. The Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University provides an academic information platform as a national joint-use facility for academic research by university faculty members, graduate students, and researchers throughout Japan. The Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University currently operates the Hokkaido University Academic Cloud, which is comprised of an interdisciplinary large-scale computing system that includes a supercomputer system and a cloud system, and petabyte-class data science unified cloud storage.. To upgrade its interdisciplinary large-scale computing system to the Hokkaido University High-Performance Inter-Cloud, it is building both a supercomputer system that will improve the processing performance of the existing system by over 20 times, and a nationwide wide-area distributed cloud system that can also be used for research on clouds and networks. It will further advance uses and research in such existing areas as scientific and technological simulations, AI, big data, and data science, and will provide an environment that can meet an even broader range of needs as people are trained to use the large-scale computing system for groundbreaking research.

Features of the New System

Supercomputer system The new supercomputer system is a massively parallel computer system consisting of subsystem A, which is comprised of 1,004 PRIMERGY CX2550 M4 x86 servers that are equipped with the Intel Xeon Scalable family of processors, and subsystem B, which is comprised of 288 Fujitsu Server PRIMERGY CX1640 M1 x86 servers that are equipped with Intel Xeon Phi processors. Each compute node is connected with Intel Omni-Path Architecture, the latest high-speed interconnect(5), for highly parallel computing performance.

Cloud system The new cloud system has 64 x86 servers, including the Fujitsu Server PRIMERGY RX2540 M4 with NVIDIA Tesla V100, the latest GPU computing card, deployed to Hokkaido University and seven more in remote sites in the Kanto, Kansai, and Kyushu regions of Japan.. Connecting these servers to the SINET5 academic backbone network makes it a nationwide wide-area distributed cloud system that extends from Hokkaido to Kyushu. The cloud platform uses the Mirantis Cloud Platform, with OpenStack at its core, delivering the latest research environment.

Designed to flexibly meet a wide variety of needs With Fujitsu Software Technical Computing Suite(6), Fujitsu’s HPC middleware for large-scale systems, the system offers optimal controls and node occupancy for jobs, improving the convenience of a wide variety of anticipated operations. It also provides flexible electric power controls to conserve power by limiting the maximum electric power consumed by each user and turning the power for nodes on or off.
Comment from Dr. Yoshiaki Takai, Director, Information Initiative Center, Hokkaido University

The Hokkaido University High-Performance Inter-Cloud is a transformational research promotion platform for advanced research that uses large-scale computational science simulations, artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things, leading to the creation of a super-smart society. The deployment of this system, which delivers the dramatically improved peak performance of 4 petaflops, will meet the expectations of universities and research institutions, as well as private sector researchers, throughout Japan, while promoting the further acceleration of academic research in Japan.

(1) Petaflops Short for peta floating point operations per second. Peta is an SI prefix indicating one quadrillion, or 10 to the power of 15, so this indicates performance of one quadrillion floating point operations per second.
(2) SINET5 SINET stands for Science Information NETwork. It is an information and communications network that is constructed and operated by the National Institute of Informatics as an academic backbone network for universities and research institutions throughout Japan.
(3) HPCI High performance computing infrastructure. A computing environment that connects the K computer and major supercomputers located in universities and laboratories across Japan in a network to meet the diverse needs of users.
(4) JHPCN Joint Usage/Research Center for Interdisciplinary Large-scale Information Infrastructures. A network of joint use and research locations made up of supercomputer facilities at Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nagoya University, Kyoto University, Osaka University, and Kyushu University, with the Information Technology Center at the University of Tokyo serving as the core location.
(5) Interconnect High-speed network connecting computation nodes.
(6) Fujitsu Software Technical Computing Suite HPC middleware that offers high execution performance for massively parallel applications through system management and job operation functionality, compilers, and libraries.

About Fujitsu Ltd

Fujitsu is a leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions, and services. Approximately 155,000 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 (TSE: 6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.5 trillion yen (US$40 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017. For more information, please see http://www.fujitsu.com.


Source: Fujitsu Ltd

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!

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion XL — were added to the benchmark suite as MLPerf continues 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 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…

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion 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…

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