Global Supercomputer Rankings ‘TOP500’ Announced
US Frontier and Aurora Take Top 2 Spots in Exascale
South Korea Ranks 10th in the World in Performance… Major Supercomputer Rankings Decline
South Korea ranked 7th in the world in terms of the number of supercomputers owned. In terms of performance, it is ranked 10th globally.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) announced at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC 2024) in Hamburg, Germany that the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Frontier has remained the world’s top-ranking supercomputer for the third consecutive year on May 14th. ISC is held annually in Germany and the US, where the performance and rankings of supercomputers worldwide are announced.
Frontier’s measured performance is 1206 petaflops, capable of performing 120.6 quintillion operations per second. A petaflop refers to one quadrillion floating-point operations per second. Exaflops, which represent one quintillion operations per second, are exceeded by supercomputers like Frontier. Frontier’s performance is at 1.206 exaflops.
In second place, Argonne National Laboratory’s ‘Aurora’ achieved 1.012 exaflops, becoming the second supercomputer to break the exascale barrier. Microsoft Azure’s ‘Eagle’ maintained its position in third place from last year. Additionally, Switzerland’s National Supercomputing Center’s ‘Alps’ debuted at 6th place within the top 10 rankings.
Regarding performance in the TOP500 rankings, the US holds 53.6%, Japan 8.2%, and Finland 4.8%, totaling 66.6% of the rankings. In terms of quantity, the US has 169 supercomputers (33.8%), China has 80 (16.0%), and Germany has 40 (8.0%). However, China is expected to be ahead of these figures as they do not fully disclose the performance of their own supercomputers.
South Korea has experienced an overall decline in rankings, with a total of 13 supercomputers in the TOP500 list. Kakao’s two supercomputers, named kakaocloud, ranked 44th and 70th. Naver’s Sejong dropped from 22nd to 25th place, and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology’s SSC-21 dropped from 29th to 32nd place.
Director Shim of KISTI National Supercomputing Center stated, “Supercomputers are essential for the continuous development of science and technology, enhancing industrial competitiveness, and improving national competitiveness,” and added, “KISTI will provide stable national supercomputer services and do its best for the development of science and technology in Korea.”