The Frontier supercomputer by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has become the first of its kind to finally break the exascale barrier. It has left behind the world’s fastest supercomputer, the Fugaku from Japan. Those of you who don’t know what the supercomputer is based on, would probably be interested in finding out what lies inside.
This super machine by ORNL features AMD’s 3rd Gen EPYC CPUs and also AMD’s newest Instinct MI250X GPUs. The total count of cores on the Frontier equals to 8,730,112 cores which together have a power efficiency of 52.23 gigaflops per watt. According to the latest report by Top500, the Frontier has crossed the 1 exaflop barrier, meaning that it now stands as the fastest computer on its list. Thanks to its whopping speeds, the supercomputer has even left behind the Fugaku. In terms of computer power, the Frontier has crossed 1,102.00 PFlops/s and at its peak it stood at a shocking 1,685.65 PFlops/s.
This news is also a time to rejoice for AMD as it its 3rd Gen Milan systems take two out of the three top positions on this list. For comparison’s sake, the Fugaku is based on 2019 Fujitsu A64FX processors. IBM Power9 and NVIDIA Volta GV100 based Summit system hold the fourth position for now and both are located at ORNL.