19th November 2013

China's Tianhe-2 retains lead on Top 500 supercomputer list

Tianhe-2, a Chinese supercomputer, has retained its position as the world's no. 1 system with 33.86 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second) on the Linpack benchmark – according to the latest TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers.

The 42nd edition of the twice-yearly TOP500 list was announced yesterday at the SC13 conference in Denver, Colorado. While a typical desktop PC has four cores, Tianhe-2 (which means “Milky Way 2”) features 3,120,000 – each using Intel's "Ivy Bridge" 22 nanometre processors. It has 1,024,000 gigabytes of random-access memory (RAM), 12.4 petabytes of storage space and needs 17,800 kilowatts (kW) of electricity to work. Including external cooling, it requires 24,000 kW. The entire complex occupies 720 square metres of floor space and costs 2.4 billion Yuan (US$390 million).

China’s National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) – which developed Tianhe-2 – says it will be offered as a "research and education" tool once tests are completed. Local reports suggest that the car industry is a "priority" client, so it may be useful in complex engine simulations, for example, or devising new materials and more efficient components.

Titan – installed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory – remains the no. 2 system, achieving 17.59 petaflop/s on the Linpack benchmark. Titan is among the most energy efficient systems on the list, consuming a total of 8.21 MW of electrical power and delivering 2.14 gigaflops per watt, compared to 1.9 for Tianhe-2.

Sequoia, an IBM BlueGene/Q system installed at the DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is the no. 3 system. First delivered in 2011, Sequoia reached 17.17 petaflop/s on the Linpack benchmark.

In all, there are 31 systems with performance greater than a petaflop/s on the list, an increase of five compared to the June 2013 list. Intel continues to provide the processors for the largest share (82.4 percent) of TOP500 systems.

Although China holds the no.1 spot, the U.S. is clearly the leading consumer of supercomputers, with 265 of the top 500 systems (253 last time). The European share (102 systems compared to 112 last time) is still lower than the Asian share (115 systems, down from 118 last time).

Like many forms of information technology, the growth of supercomputing power has followed a remarkably smooth and consistent trend. As shown in the graph below, we can expect to see the first exaflop machine by 2019. An exaflop is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (a million trillion, or a quintillion) calculations per second. Such computing power will be invaluable to researchers – providing faster and more accurate simulations of climate, weather, astrophysics, genetics, molecular dynamics and many other processes. Zettaflop machines could emerge by 2030.

The current list can be viewed at TOP500.org with an Excel version available too.

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