U.S. to Build Two Flagship Supercomputers for National Labs
Expected to be 3X Faster Than Current Top Supercomputer, Systems to Couple IBM POWER CPUs with NVIDIA GPU Accelerators via High-Speed NVLink Interface
Public Relations
Jen Andersson
PR Manager Northern Europe
NVIDIA
jandersson@nvidia.com
SANTA CLARA, Calif.-Nov. 14, 2014-The U.S. Department of Energy today unveiled plans to build two GPU-accelerated supercomputers - expected to deliver at least three-times greater performance than today's most powerful system - which will move the world closer to the long-held goal of exascale computing.
The supercomputers, to be installed in 2017, will be based on next-generation IBM POWER servers with NVIDIA Tesla GPU accelerators and NVIDIA NVLink high-speed GPU interconnect technology.
The Summit system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be capable of delivering 150 to 300 peak petaflops, and be used for open science. Delivering performance well in excess of 100 peak petaflops, the Sierra system will be a key element of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's national nuclear security mission.
They will be considerably faster than the U.S.'s current speed champ, Oak Ridge's Titan, which delivers 27 peak petaflops, as well as the world's fastest, Tianhe-2 at China's National Super Computer Center, in Guangzhou, which delivers 55 peak petaflops.
Visit the NVIDIA website for more information and a about these new systems.
Today's science is tomorrow's technology, said Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO and co-founder of NVIDIA. Scientists are tackling massive challenges from quantum to global to galactic scales. Their work relies on increasingly more powerful supercomputers. Through the invention of GPU acceleration, we have paved the path to exascale supercomputing - giving scientists a tool for unimaginable discoveries.
The U.S. is investing in Summit and Sierra to achieve breakthroughs that lead to greater U.S. energy independence, new approaches to curbing climate change, dramatic improvements in fuel efficiency, natural disaster prediction, safer nuclear material storage, economic competitiveness, and more.
The systems represent the first major milestone in the ongoing partnership between IBM and NVIDIA. They build upon the work of the OpenPOWER Foundation, an open development community formed to develop next-generation computing solutions for high performance computing and enterprise data center customers.
New Technologies Hasten Exascale Computing
The supercomputing community has for many years worked toward building exascale systems, which can perform a quintillion - a billion billion or 1018 - floating point calculations per second, known as FLOPS. A FLOP is equivalent to a single mathematical calculation, like multiplying two numbers together.
Summit and Sierra will be the next major step on the path to reaching exascale computing levels by virtue of a number of breakthrough technologies.
One is the NVIDIA NVLink high-speed GPU interconnect, which will be integrated into NVIDIA GPUs and IBM POWER CPUs powering the new systems. NVLink allows GPUs and CPUs to share data five to 12 times faster than today, and is designed to ultimately enable supercomputers that are 50 to 100 times faster than today's fastest systems.
The systems will also feature NVIDIA's future generation GPU architecture, Volta , which will deliver considerably higher performance than the company's current Maxwell architecture and subsequent Pascal design. Delivering significantly higher levels of computational performance than anything available today, NVIDIA GPUs will provide Summit and Sierra with more than 90 percent of the peak floating point processing capability.
Our users have the most complex scientific problems and need exceptionally powerful computers to meet national goals, said Buddy Bland, project director of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The projected performance of Summit would not have been possible without the combination of these technologies, which will give our users an exceptionally powerful tool to accomplish these goals.
Summit to Accelerate Open Science Computing
Summit, like Titan, will be dedicated to open science, meaning that researchers worldwide will have the opportunity to apply for time on the system. It will also raise the bar for energy-efficient computing, providing five to 10 times higher performance than Titan, while using only 10 percent more power.
Sierra to Bolster National Security
Sierra will deliver five to 10 times higher compute performance than Lawrence Livermore's current fastest system, Sequoia, which delivers 20 petaflops. It will be used for the National Nuclear Security Administration's program to ensure the safety, security and effectiveness of the nation's nuclear deterrent without testing, and nonproliferation efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction worldwide.
Exascale Computing's Potential and Challenge
Exascale supercomputers are anticipated to further discovery into broad areas of science, engineering and industry, such as enabling work on cures for disease, providing insights into the human brain, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change, and increasing our understanding of the origins of the universe.
However, a fundamental challenge in attaining exascale systems is achieving higher levels of performance while minimizing energy consumption, a task GPU accelerators are particularly well suited for. An exascale system built with NVIDIA's latest GPU accelerators would consume
five times less power than an x86 CPU-based system, enabling system designers to deliver extremely higher levels of energy-efficient performance.
About the NVIDIA Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform
Th
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
27/04/2024
On April 26, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher E. Kubasik joined CNBC's Mor...
27/04/2024
PORTLAND, Oregon Audinate Group Limited, the developer of the Dante AV-over-IP solution, announced significant new additions to Dante Connect, its cloud-based D...
27/04/2024
TORONTO Bell Media has launched 10 English and French-language FAST channels featuring entertainment, factual, news, and sports programming. The new free stream...
27/04/2024
An extensive new analysis of the news segments in the broadcast evening news programs of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS has found that broadcasters devoted most of their...
27/04/2024
GERMANTOWN, Md. EchoStar's Hughes Network Systems has opened a new manufacturing facility and private 5G incubation center in Germantown, Maryland....
27/04/2024
Harry Pappas, one of three brothers who founded Pappas Telecasting Companies in 1971, died April 24. He was 78 years old....
27/04/2024
ATLANTA and LONDON Mexican telecommunications and broadcast company Televisa has selected Synamedia for an overhaul of its broadcast distribution....
27/04/2024
Participate in the Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this surve...
27/04/2024
SDVI Rally Access Workstation Earns Two Top Awards at 2024 NAB Show
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
SDVI, the leading platform provider for clo...
27/04/2024
Berklee's Music and Health Institute Launches Community Health Musician Cert...
27/04/2024
Charter Communications reported higher first-quarter profits despite continued cord-cutting and competition for broadband customers....
27/04/2024
Two environmentally-focused groups are partnering to engage the unscripted TV world in finding better ways to address climate change. Reality of Change is an ec...
27/04/2024
Sarah Garcia has been promoted to weekend anchor at KTLM McAllen, Texas, known as Telemundo 40. Starting April 27, she will anchor Noticias Telemundo 40 weekend...
27/04/2024
CBS Sports said it launched a new 24-hour free, ad supported streaming television (FAST) channel devoted to the UEFA Champions League....
27/04/2024
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts received $35.4 million in compensation in 2023, up 11% from the previous year, according to a proxy statement filed by th...
27/04/2024
Art Happens Here With John Lithgow, which sees the actor study dance, ceramics, silk-screen printing and vocal jazz with students in Los Angeles, debuts on PBS ...
27/04/2024
Remember Leave It to Beaver? Bewitched? Dragnet? When cable ratings were rising?...
27/04/2024
Next up for the weekend binge at Catchy Comedy is Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Every weekend, Catchy Comedy features The Catchy Binge, a marathon of a classic sitcom....
26/04/2024
Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024 kicks-off today with screenings in 5 theaters in Mexico City and the opening-night film, FRIDA, directed by Carla Guti rrez...
26/04/2024
[Editor's Note: This interview is part of a larger feature about the women d...
26/04/2024
Once again this year, SGL Carbon opened its doors to interested children and young people. On the occasion of the German Girls and Boys Day, which took place on...
26/04/2024
Orders1 of $5.5 billion; book-to-bill of 1.06x
Revenue of $5.2 billion, up 17%,...
26/04/2024
Five Considerations For Communications Modernization In The 21st Century
In the digital-enabled battlespace, the Joint Force needs to shoot, move and communica...
26/04/2024
CBS Sports has launched Champions League as a new, 24-hour streaming channel that will serve as the year-round destination for nonstop highlights of the UEFA ...
26/04/2024
Despite tough competition in the streaming space, Roku reported solid results in Q1 2024, beating revenue expectations, with total net revenue up 19% YoY to $88...
26/04/2024
LONDON AND TORONTO Pinewood Toronto Studios has appointed Sarah Farrell as general manager of the Studios in downtown Toronto....
26/04/2024
Quantum to Offer Advanced Filesharing Technology and Performance in StorNext and...
26/04/2024
FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2024 entries and introduces new Emerging Talen...
26/04/2024
Picture Shop Announces Chris Evans as Head of Unscripted
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
Picture Shop announced Chris Evans will lead Unscripte...
26/04/2024
Participate in a Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this survey,...
26/04/2024
Toy maker Mattel said it is working with Samsung to launch its first free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels later this year....
26/04/2024
Trusted Media Brands (TMB) said it named Marty Moe as president....
26/04/2024
Ron Howard is the director on Jim Henson Idea Man, a documentary that premieres on Disney Plus May 31. Henson of course created Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Big...
26/04/2024
The ice continues to melt under the regional sports network business as the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League have made a long-term deal to broadcast...
26/04/2024
Heading into the upfronts, Warner Bros. Discovery said it launched Olli, a first-party data platform advertiser can use for converged, targeted advertising camp...
26/04/2024
CBS has renewed the drama The Equalizer, which will see season five on in 2024-2025. Queen Latifah stars....
26/04/2024
The CW has entered into an exclusive multiyear broadcast partnership for the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Teen USA Pageant. The 73rd Miss USA Pageant will air ...
26/04/2024
Fuse Media isn't mincing words in a campaign urging its young viewers to register and participate in the 2024 elections....
26/04/2024
Dead Boy Detectives, a series from Neil Gaiman about a detective agency staffed by ghosts, debuts on Netflix April 25. George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri are in t...
26/04/2024
The Story Collective has gradually repurposed the former Mortlake Brewery to include production offices, workshops and sound stages
By Matthew Corrigan
Publi...
26/04/2024
Perkett joins the company following a 25 year career in product management, product marketing, engineering and user experience (UX) across multiple industries
...
26/04/2024
Teradek, the industry leader in wireless video transmitters and receivers, announced today the launch of new Bolt 6 LT 750 and Bolt 6 Monitor Module 750 RX with...
26/04/2024
NEW YORK Amagi has appointed Richard Perkett chief product officer (CPO)....
26/04/2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has announced the results of the 2024 NAB Radio and Television Board of Directors elections. The...
26/04/2024
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. & NEW YORK Mattel has announced a deal to launch its first three 24/7 free ad supported streaming (FAST) channels on Samsung TV Plus, Samsung...
26/04/2024
PORTLAND, Maine Viewers here can now receive the NextGen TV signals of five local stations with the launch of ATSC 3.0 service from host station WPFO, which is ...
U.S. to Build Two Flagship Supercomputers for National Labs 
