Jun. 29, 2021
Fugaku earns “quadruple crown” for third consecutive term
The supercomputer Fugaku—aptly named after Japan’s tallest mountain, Mt. Fuji—maintained its place at the top of the high-performance computing world for the third consecutive term. At ISC2021, an online high-performance computing event, it was awarded first place on the TOP500 list—the best known supercomputing benchmark, as well as HPCG, a measure of supercomputer performance on real-world applications, and HPL-AI, which ranks computers on artificial intelligence related tasks, and Graph500, which gauges a computer’s ability to handle data-intensive loads. Fugaku, which was jointly developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu Limited, began to be used for shared use in March this year.
On the TOP500 benchmark, it achieved a score of 442.01 petaFLOPS using 158,976 nodes. On the HPCG ranking, it achieved a score of 16.00 petaFLOPS, also using all 158,976 nodes. On the HPL-AI ranking, it had a score of 2.004 exaFLOPS, achieving an exascale rating for the second time. And its score on Graph500, won by a collaboration involving RIKEN, Kyushu University, Fixstars Corporation, and Fujitsu, was 102,955 GTEPS.
According to Satoshi Matsuoka, Director the RIKEN Center for Computational Science, “Fugaku is a crystallization of the world's most advanced IT technology, combining high performance, low power consumption, and user friendliness. In addition to topping the major benchmarks of simulations, big data, and AI for the third consecutive term, it has also made a major contribution to the establishment of COVID-19 safety guidelines for the government and private sector, and has helped lead a digital transformation in the area of infectious diseases. With this continued dominance we have been show that Fugaku is leading the world in a range of areas. We will continue to use it to contribute to the achievement of Society 5.0 and the SDGs in Japan.”
According to Naoki Shinjo, Corporate Executive Officer of Fujitsu Limited, “Key to winning these four awards for the third consecutive term is the fact that we worked together with RIKEN to further enhance application performance, and we were able to achieve very well balanced performance. With the start of shared use in March, we believe that many people are already taking advantage of Fugaku’s high performance. We ourselves are planning to use it for joint research on drug discovery in partnership with the University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology. We hope that the results we obtain will lead to the discovery of new drugs, the advent of a safer and more secure society, and the achievement of Society 5.0. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to RIKEN and other parties for their cooperation and support.”