HPE Establishes Contract for 382.5 Billion Won
Capable of 6 Quadrillion Calculations Per Second
Expectations for Diverse Applications in AI, New Materials
A new national supercomputing system, Supercomputer Unit No. 6 equipped with 8,496 of NVIDIA’s high-performance Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), is set to be introduced domestically. The construction will be completed by this year with services starting in the first half of next year.
The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 14th that it has finalized a contract worth 382.5 billion won with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) on the 12th to establish Supercomputer Unit No. 6.
This contract succeeds after five failed attempts. In the past five bids, only HPE participated. This time, both HPE and Lenovo participated, with HPE ultimately being selected as the final bidder after reviewing specifications and performance.
HPE holds its own supercomputer-exclusive network technology and had 106 supercomputers listed within the top 500 globally as of last November. The Ministry of Science and ICT noted that many of HPE’s supercomputers rank high, such as 1st, 2nd, and 5th, showcasing HPE’s rich construction experience.
The upcoming Supercomputer Unit No. 6, featuring 8,496 latest GPUs from NVIDIA, including the ‘GH200’, is anticipated to be listed within the world’s top 10 supercomputers. It will specifically have computational performance of 600 petaflops (PF) and storage capacity of 205 petabytes (PB). Petaflops represent a unit for 1 quadrillion calculations per second, indicating that Supercomputer Unit No. 6 can perform 6 quadrillion operations.
This development will enable domestic researchers to conduct their research with improved infrastructure. The previous Supercomputer Unit No. 5, which primarily utilized CPUs, was not suitable for AI or high-performance computing research.
KISTI’s President, Korean Institute of Science and Technology Information, said, “Typically, supercomputers have a lifespan of about five years. Many researchers couldn’t compete due to the lack of resources despite having ideas.” The Supercomputer Unit No. 5, introduced in 2018, is currently in its seventh year of use.
With the global surge in demand for GPUs driven by the generative AI boom, researchers faced difficulties acquiring GPUs for their work. The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to distribute Supercomputer Unit No. 6 across fundamental and original research, public and social issues, and the industrial sector to meet domestic demand. The distribution ratio will be finalized in the second half of this year, determined by an evaluation committee of experts.
According to the current plans, resources will be provided free of charge to universities and government-funded research institutions, with forecasts suggesting 40% for basic and original research, 20% for public and social issues, and 20% for industrial applications. The AI sector, facing high demand, is expected to receive 30% of the total resources.
The Supercomputer Unit No. 6 project faced several challenges due to the fixed budget and skyrocketing GPU prices. After the project failed to attract bids, the government increased the project budget from 292.9 billion won to 448.3 billion won in November of last year, ultimately succeeding in finalizing the contract this time.