A New Day for the TOP500: Aurora No. 2 at 585 PFlops, 4 New Top 10 Entrants, Frontier Still No. 1

Denver — Attendees at the SC23 conference here in Denver have been greeted by a roiled TOP500 ranking of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, along with significant news about a would-be exascale HPC system coming in at no. 2 on the list….

Argonne Preps Aurora for Exascale Simulations of Nuclear Reactors

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are preparing to use Aurora, the laboratory’s upcoming exascale supercomputer, to delve into the inner mechanics of a variety of nuclear reactor models. These simulations promise an unprecedented level of detail, offering insights that could revolutionize reactor design by improving understanding of the intricate heat flows….

Exascale Early Adopter Series Webinar Sept. 27: Optimizing SYCL Workloads on Aurora and Sunspot

On Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 11 am Central Time, Varsha Madananth, an applications engineer at Intel, will lead an online webinar on optimizing SYCL workloads for PVC on the Aurora exascale system and the Sunspot testbed system. Registration is here, virtual meeting information will follow. This webinar will delve into a range of optimization strategies, […]

El Capitan Supercomputer Installation at Livermore Has Begun

With pictures to prove it, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced today it has begun receiving and installing components for El Capitan, what is expected to be the third exascale-class supercomputer in the U.S. The laboratory shared photos on social media today. Projected to exceed 2 exaflops, El Capitan will likely be the most powerful supercomputer […]

Intel Announces Installation of Aurora Blades Is Complete, Expects System to be First to Achieve 2 ExaFLOPS

Intel today announced the Aurora exascale-class supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory is now fully equipped with 10,624 compute blades. Putting a stake in the ground, Intel said in its announcement that “later this year, Aurora is expected to be the world’s first supercomputer to achieve a theoretical peak performance of more than 2 exaflops … […]

ALCF Starts Aurora Learning Path Series May 17

The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility will begin a new Aurora Learning Paths series on Wednesday, May 17 from 1:30-3:30 pm CT. Two more sessions will be held on June 14 and July 12. Registration is here. The three-part series will go into detail about how to apply key Intel architectural innovations and libraries via smart […]

insideHPC-Hyperion Research Interview: Argonne’s Rick Stevens on the Future of Everything – U.S. Post-Exascale Strategy, AI for Science, HPC in 2040 and an Aurora Install Update

In this interview conducted on behalf of HPC analyst firm Hyperion Research, we spoke with Argonne National Laboratory’s Rick Stevens about the present and future of HPC. The starting point for this conversation is a presentation Stevens gave at a Hyperion event in Washington related to implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act and includes his insights on the post-exascale build-out of an integrated network of U.S. supercomputing capacity (the Integrated Research Infrastructure, or IRI). We then look at AI for science and the use of data-driven modeling and simulation, which shows the potential to deliver major performance gains for researchers….

Intel Alters HPC-AI Roadmap: ‘Rialto Bridge’ GPU Discontinued

After business hours on Friday, Intel released information on a “streamlined and simplified” data center GPU roadmap with direct impact on HPC and AI. The new plan calls for the discontinuation of the “Rialto Bridge” GPU, which was to have succeeded the Ponte Vecchio chip that itself was delayed several years before shipments began last […]

Aurora on Schedule? Intel Says it’s Shipping Ponte Vecchio-Sapphire Rapids Blades to Argonne

The rumors had begun to cirulate – October is near, that starts the fourth quarter, 2023 isn’t far behind, all of which means Intel is coming up against a hard deadline to deliver its delayed Aurora exascale-class supercomputer to Argonne National Laboratory by the end of the year. Is another delay in the offing?
Then, yesterday, Intel tweeted this out: “Server blades with Intel 4th Gen Xeon and Ponte Vecchio, which uses Intel’s most advanced IP and packaging technology, are now shipping to Argonne National Labs to power the Aurora supercomputer!” And the tweet was backed by comments to the same effect from CEO Pat Gelsinger

Former Intel HPC Leader Trish Damkroger Joins HPE as Chief Product Officer for HPC and AI

Damkroger joins HPE at a pivotal time for the company’s HPC organization as its customers at three US Department of Energy national laboratories transition to the exascale era — supercomputers capable of 10(18) calculations per second. As Hotard stated in his blog, “HPE is at the forefront of making exascale computing, a technological magnitude that will deliver 10X faster performance than the majority of today’s most powerful supercomputers, a soon-to-be reality. With the upcoming U.S. Department of Energy’s exascale system, Frontier, an HPE Cray EX supercomputer that will be hosted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we are unlocking a new world of supercomputing.”