On November 15, the K computer took first place for the third consecutive time in the HPCG benchmark, a new index developed to create a more realistic view of supercomputer performance compared to the commonly used LINPACK benchmark.

The HPCG (High Performance Conjugate Gradient) benchmark measures how fast a computer can solve symmetric sparse linear system equations using the conjugate gradient method preconditioned with a multi-grid symmetric Gauss-Seidel smoother. Problems of this type are typically encountered in actual engineering and industrial applications, and require a balance between calculation performance, memory performance and communication performance, unlike LINPACK, which looks at calculation speed alone.

For this result, all of the K computer’s 82,944 compute nodes were used, achieving a performance of 603 teraflops. This figure is higher than the supercomputers that placed higher than the K computer in the TOP500 rankings, demonstrating outstanding performance in various science and engineering fields.

According to Mike Heroux of Sandia National Laboratories, who developed the HPCG benchmark, "The K computer remains number one on the HPCG list. This is a strong statement of the balanced design that continues to make it an attractive system for a broad spectrum of HPC applications."

The award was presented at SC17, the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis in Denver, Colorado.