3 EuroHPC supercomputers make the global top 10 of the world’s most powerful supercomputers

 

The latest editions of the TOP500 and Green500 lists were released on Monday on the first day of the SC23 conference held in Denver, USA.

All operational EuroHPC supercomputers have been ranked on the top 200 supercomputers worldwide, with MareNostrum 5 entering the list for the first time at 8^th place. MareNostrum 5’s TOP500 list debut marks the third EuroHPC supercomputer to be ranked in the global top ten, after LUMI and Leonardo, which sit at 5^th and 6^th place respectively.

The TOP500 list ranks the world’s most powerful supercomputers based on their performance on the LINPACK Benchmark, while the Green500 list evaluates the 500 most powerful supercomputers by their energy efficiency. The TOP500 and the Green500 lists are published twice a year in June and November and serve as essential benchmarks in the supercomputing community.

MareNostrum 5 Enters the Top500

MareNostrum 5 (MN5) has made its inaugural appearance on the Top500 list at 8^th place. MN5 has a computational architecture which combines two different partitions: the general purpose partition and the accelerated partition.

The accelerated partition of MareNostrum 5 achieved a High Performance Linpack (HPL) performance of 138.2 petaflops, equivalent to 138.2 million billion calculations per second. This partition is based on Eviden’s BullSequana XH3000 next-generation hybrid architecture, integrating GPU nodes using NVIDIA’s H100 Tensor Core GPU, based on the new Hopper™ architecture and with 4^th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (codenamed Sapphire Rapids).

While the MN5 General Purpose partition, which is a CPU-only system, has excelled with an HPL of 40.10 petaflops. This accomplishment stands out given that this partition operates without any accelerators. This makes the MN5 General Purpose partition the third most powerful CPU-only system and the most powerful system based on the x86 architecture.

While using state of the art energy-efficient HPC technologies on the top of being water cooled, as all EuroHPC supercomputers, MareNostrum is not only highly powerful but also the greenest supercomputer in Europe and the 6th greenest supercomputer in the world.

Designed with a particular focus on enhancing European medical research, MareNostrum 5 is poised to strengthen research in drug and vaccine development, virus spread simulations, Artificial Intelligence, and big data processing applications. The machine will also support traditional HPC applications, such as climate research, engineering, material science and earth sciences.

MareNostrum 5 is the third pre-exascale supercomputer of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and is hosted at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC) in Spain.

LUMI and Leonardo Remain Among the Top

LUMI and Leonardo, retain their status as Europe’s preeminent high-performance computing resources. In the evolving landscape of HPC, they each remain in the top 6 globally, and hold their positions as the two most powerful supercomputers in Europe.

LUMI, the EuroHPC supercomputer hosted by CSC in Finland, has secured in 5^th place in the latest edition of the Top500 list, standing firmly as Europe’s leading supercomputer.

With a measured HPL performance of 379.7 petaflops (379.7 million billion calculations per second), and based on an HPE Cray EX supercomputer supplied by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), LUMI’s computational capabilities continue to surpass all other European supercomputers and now exceeds the already high performance target set in the installation contract. LUMI has been available to European researchers since December 2022. 

LUMI stands out not only for its impressive operational achievements but also its commitment to sustainable computing. LUMI boasts many eco-friendly attributes, making it one of the greenest supercomputers in Europe and the world, and securing it the 7^th place in the Green500 list. Operating entirely on carbon-free hydroelectric renewable energy, its processors are cooled with natural water-cooling systems, and waste heat is repurposed for local district heating.

Leonardo too has proven itself as a prime supercomputing resource. The number two supercomputer in Europe, hosted by CINECA places at 6^th position in the global rankings. With an HPL performance of 238,7 petaflops, Leonardo’s  exceptional computational capabilities cater to the diverse requirements of European users and researchers across scientific domains, from medicine to agriculture among many other fields.

Leonardo’s architecture is based on BullSequana XH2000 technology supplied by Eviden and is ideally suited for high-intensity computing tasks, encompassing data processing, high-performance data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

In 2024, Leonardo is set to receive an upgrade that will introduce a new partition, further expanding its capacity and capabilities, serving as an invaluable resource for the European scientific community.

The EuroHPC Supercomputers: World-Class and Eco-Friendly

All the EuroHPC operational petascale supercomputers, Meluxina, Vega, Discoverer and Karolina, have achieved recognition in the global rankings, securing positions among the top 200 supercomputers worldwide, according to the TOP500 list.

Moreover, Karolina and MeluXina have also demonstrated impressive environmental responsibility, ranking respectively number 25 and 27 in the Green500 list. These results are in line with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking's goal of fostering a world-class European HPC infrastructure while minimising its environmental impact, in line with the European Union’s green priorities.

 

More details

• LUMI retains its position as Europe’s fastest supercomputer, press release from LUMI supercomputer

• MareNostrum 5 will be the only European supercomputer with two entries in the list of the 20 most powerful supercomputers in the world, press release from BSC 

Background

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) is a legal and funding entity created in 2018 to enable the European Union and EuroHPC participating countries to coordinate their efforts and pool their resources with the objective of making Europe a world leader in supercomputing. The mission of the EuroHPC JU is:

• to develop, deploy, extend and maintain in the EU a federated, secure hyperconnected supercomputing, quantum computing, service and data infrastructure ecosystem;
• to support the development and uptake of demand-oriented and user-driven innovative and competitive supercomputing and quantum computing systems based on a supply chain that will ensure the availability of components, technologies and knowledge;
• and, to widen the use of that supercomputing and quantum computing infrastructure to a large number of public and private users.

In order to equip Europe with a world-leading supercomputing infrastructure, the EuroHPC JU has already procured nine supercomputers, located across Europe. No matter where in Europe they are located, European scientists and users from the public sector and industry can benefit from these EuroHPC supercomputers, which rank among the world’s most powerful.