Top Most Powerful Supercomputer in the world
Detained for two and a half years by China, the United States take the lead Top Most Powerful Supercomputer in the world ranking of the most powerful supercomputers with a machine of 122.3 petaflops. In computing power installed, they also dominate again with 38.2% of the capacity of the Top 500, against 29.1% for the Middle Kingdom.
The United States is back in force in computation intensive. With their new Summit supercomputer of 122.3 petaflops (1 petaflop is worth a million billion floating point operations per second), they take back the first place in the world held by China for two and a half years. This is revealed by the Top 500 ranking of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world, published on June 25, 2018 at the opening of the ISC Conference on Computing in Frankfurt, Germany .
2 new IBM machines in the Top 3
Built by IBM, the Summit equips the Oak Ridge National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy. It was officially inaugurated on June 8, 2018, with a computing power of 200 petaflops . But according to the Linpack refine, based on the Top 500 ranking, its effective computing power is 122.3 petaflops. It is a major milestone in the project to commission an exaflopic supercomputer (1 exaflops worth 1 billion billion floating point operations per second) planned for 2021. It drives out the Chinese supercomputer Sanway TaihuLight which, with 93 petaflops, had been at the top of the world rankings for two years.
This is not the only American victory. The United States also take third place (formerly occupied by the Swiss machine Piz Daint) with another new supercomputer: the Sierra. Also signed by IBM, he equips the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of the Department of Energy, with a computing power of 71.6 petaflops.
With these two new monsters computing, the United States regain dominance with 38.2% of the cumulative power of the Top 500, against 29.1% for China. They realize this feat while the number of US machines in the ranking drops to 124, its lowest level historical, against 206 for the Middle Kingdom.
The Chinese Lenovo signs the most machines
Paradoxically, the American manufacturers, who dominated the sector so far, are dethroned by Chinese Lenovo. It signs 122 supercomputers, the largest number of machines in the Top 500. It is ahead of the yankees Hewlett Packard Enterprise (68 machines), Cray (56 machines) or IBM (19 machines), but also his compatriot Sugon (55 machines) and the French Atos Bull (21 machines).
The United States and China are followed by Japan (36 machines), the United Kingdom (22 machines), Germany (21 machines) and France (18 machines). The most powerful supercomputer in France is the Tera-1000-2, a recent evolution of the Tera-1000-1. Built by Atos Bull, it equips the CEA for nuclear simulation applications. With a computing power of 12 petaflops, it points to the fourteenth place of the Top 500.
