- InsightsInsights
- CryptocurrenciesCryptocurrencies
- Stocks
- White Papers
- IndustryIndustry
- GeographyGeography
The demand for high-performing computing systems in market research, scientific and engineering work and other business associated models continues to surge today. This is where a supercomputer comes in, performing at or near its current highest operational rate. The performance of supercomputers is typically measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS), in place of million instructions per second (MIPS). Such computers are composed of thousands of processors working in parallel and respond to increasing needs to process zillions of data in real-time with quality and accuracy. Analytics Insight compiles a list of the top 5 fastest supercomputers in the world known for their supercomputing capabilities.
Japan's Fugaku, which was jointly developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu, is now the world's fastest supercomputer. Since the K computer, Fugaku's predecessor, debuted in the first position in June 2011, Japan has not had a system take the top spot.
The first top-ranked system that uses ARM processors is Fugaku. Hybrid memory cubes attached to each of the CPUs and a new generation of the Tofu network, which enables tight integration across all of the system's nodes, are two further new features.
Taking the top spot from China for the first time in six years, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL) Summit initially claimed it in June 2018 as part of the US Department of Energy's reaffirmed commitment to supercomputing capability.
Sierra from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) debuted at #3 in June 2018. However, Sierra drops to third place when a new number one debuts in June 2020.
Sierra was created expressly for modeling and simulations required by the US National Nuclear Security Administration and incorporates both IBM CPUs and NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs).
Sunway TaihuLight, another past number one, ruled the charts for two years after making its debut in June 2016. It was the most powerful supercomputer in the world at the time, with 10,649,000 cores and 93.01 petaFLOPS, more than five times the processing capability of the next closest competitor (ORNL's Titan).
In June 2013, Tianhe-2, also known as "MilkyWay-2," made its debut as the number one song in the entire world. However, despite enhancements throughout time, it now only just barely maintains a position in the top five with 4,981,760 cores operating at 61.4 petaFLOPS. Such is a modern supercomputer's ephemeral grandeur.
