We have entered the exascale era and it is the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA that leads the way, with a machine called Frontier. Dependent on the US Energy Department and announced in 2019, Frontier puts an end to two years of domination by Fugaku, the Japanese supercomputer which marked the first foray of ARM architecture into this place.
Frontier is a power monster that just developed 1.1 exaflops of power, but could go higher in the future (it is expected to develop up to 1.5 exaflops). In addition to this unprecedented power, you have to look at the heart of its components to detect another first: the choice of AMD for its two flagship components.
AMD: the path to dual CPU and GPU competence
A “classic” modern supercomputer draws its power from two types of chips: the CPU (or central processor) and the GPU (graphics processor). And when we look at the Top 500 statistics, the typical machine is based on Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs, the two leaders in each of these markets.
Read also: AMD unveils impressive CPUs and GPUs to become a data center champion (2021)
Here, AMD achieves a first with its dual CPU and GPU mastery. A success that highlights the challenges of the sector… and the movements of its competitors. GPU champion Nvidia developed its first high-performance ARM CPU, “Grace”, and Intel did the opposite with its specialized compute GPU, “Ponte Vecchio”.
Frontier: the double number 1
Initially, the x86 and ARM architectures were defined as follows: at x86 the raw power, at ARM the energy efficiency. If this remains true below a certain level of power consumption, these differences which tend to disappear with ARM chips with more than 144 cores, which swallow watts without counting, and sometimes more efficient x86 chips.
Like here, where AMD’s CPU/GPU duo – EPYX Milan (5nm) and Instinct MI250X (7nm) – not only proves to be the most powerful in the world in terms of pure performance (No. 1 in the Top 500) but also the most energy efficient (No. 1 Green500).
Read also: How AMD wants to reduce the ecological impact of the Net and AI by 2025 (2021)
With 52.23 gigaflops per watt, it literally buries the number 1 of the Green500, MN-3. With only 21.1 gigaflops per watt, the Japanese is pulverized by the record efficiency of Frontier which is capable of deploying 52.23 gigaflops per watt.
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Also see video:
In addition to the success of AMD, it should also be noted that of HPE/Cray, in charge of the design and assembly of this extraordinary machine. It takes immense know-how to make the monster’s thousands of processors work together in the most efficient way possible.