All hail our new leader — AMD-powered El Capitan becomes officially the world’s fastest supercomputer

by DTM | Posted on
  • El Capitan is the new world leader in raw computing power
  • It is situated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
  • El Capitan is powered by AMD instinct MI300A APUs

The global supercomputing leaderboard has a new presence at top spot, as the AMD-powered El Capitan takes over prime position to become the world’s most powerful setup.

With a sustained compute power of 1.7 exaflops and a peak of over 2.7 exaflops, El Capitan knocks previous leader Frontier to second on the list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.

El Capitan was built by HPE for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to simulate nuclear weapons tests. It is powered by AMD instinct MI300A APUs and is not only the fastest but also in the top 20 of the greenest computers too.

Computations reduced from months to weeks

For perspective, El Capitan can achieve a task in less than one second that requires one human to do one calculation every second since the earth formed and then again for nine more earths.

The supercomputer will enable LLNL to significantly improve the ability to predict and model nuclear weapon performance as the stockpile gets older and new systems are introduced.

This will help LLNL to better understand and make informed decisions for safety. It will also be leveraged for a range of other missions to help understand emergencies such as natural disasters and manmade crises.

It does this by providing higher resolutions in 3D modelling that were either not possible with previous machines or too computationally expensive to regularly run.

More accurate replication of physics allows the analysis of components to be of higher quality, helping scientists incorporate more real-world factors such as material and manufacturing imperfections and environmental conditions.

Previously these calculations were either impossible or would take weeks or months on LLNLs current systems – which has now been reduced down to days or even hours.

“Leveraging the AMD Instinct MI300A APUs, we’ve built a system that was once unimaginable, pushing the absolute boundaries of computational performance while maintaining exceptional energy efficiency,” noted Bronis R. de Supinski, LLNL’s chief technology officer for Livermore Computing.

“With AI becoming increasingly prevalent in our field, El Capitan allows us to integrate AI with our traditional simulation and modeling workloads, opening new avenues for discovery across various scientific disciplines.”

AMD now powers both of the two most powerful supercomputers in the world, with a combined power of over 3 exaflops totalling 61% of the performance of the entire top 10.

Of the top 10, AMD now powers five devices, including El Capitan, Frontier, HPC6 from ENI, LUMI, and Tuolumne.

“We are thrilled to see El Capitan become the second AMD powered supercomputer to break the exaflop barrier and become the fastest supercomputer in the world. Showcasing the incredible performance and efficiency of the AMD Instinct MI300 APUs, this groundbreaking machine is a testament to the dedicated work between AMD, LLNL and HPE,” said Forrest Norrod, executive vice president and general manager, AMD.

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