Thursday, October 28th 2021
Intel Aurora Supercomputer Will Touch 2 ExaFLOPs of Computational Power
Intel's Aurora supercomputer is a $500 million contract with the US Department of Energy to deliver an exascale supercomputer for Argonne National Laboratory. The project aims to build a machine capable of cranking over one ExaFLOP of computing at sustained workloads. The supercomputer aims to reach two ExaFLOPs of computing power once the installation system is completed and powered. The contract bound Intel to create accelerators that are powerful enough to achieve this magical number. However, they left Intel with room to do a little bit extra. With Ponte Vecchio GPU behind the project, it seems like the GPU is performing better than expected.
According to Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, the system will reach over 2 ExaFLOPs at peak and a bit below in sustained workloads. As per preliminary calculations done by The Next Platform, the system's estimations point towards 2.43 ExaFLOPs peak and around 1.7 ExaFLOPs in sustained workloads at Double-precision floating-point format math, aka FP64. The system will utilize Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids processors with HBM memory and the powerful Ponte Vecchio GPU with 47 tiles and over 100 billion transistors.
Source:
The Next Platform
According to Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, the system will reach over 2 ExaFLOPs at peak and a bit below in sustained workloads. As per preliminary calculations done by The Next Platform, the system's estimations point towards 2.43 ExaFLOPs peak and around 1.7 ExaFLOPs in sustained workloads at Double-precision floating-point format math, aka FP64. The system will utilize Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids processors with HBM memory and the powerful Ponte Vecchio GPU with 47 tiles and over 100 billion transistors.
21 Comments on Intel Aurora Supercomputer Will Touch 2 ExaFLOPs of Computational Power
And still nothing delivered
www.nextplatform.com/2021/10/04/first-look-at-oak-ridges-frontier-exascaler-contrasted-to-argonnes-aurora/
It shows how far Intel is behind AMD.
www.nextplatform.com/2021/10/27/intel-aims-for-zettaflops-by-2027-pushes-aurora-above-2-exaflops/
1Exflop of INT4/INT8/FP16 is not equal to 1 Exaflop of DP64. DP64 is the measure of supercomputer not AI INT4/INT8/FP16.
>>...workloads at dual-precision FP64 math...
There is No dual-precision FP64 math and there is a Double Precision ( 53-bit ) Floating Point arithmetics ( using 64-bit double data type ).
As a Software Engineer I constantly see that too many guys, who write articles, blog posts, etc. on the Web, do Not fully understand fundamental concepts, especially related to precision, of Floating Point arithmetics.
Please watch out a youtube video:
Accuracy of Floating Point arithmetic defined by IEEE 754 Standard ( VTR-095 )
How much data would need to be constantly moving to create an alternate reality like the Matrix? It seems we are heading that direction..
That's correct...
Orders of Magnitude for FLOPs are as follows:
MegaFLOPs MFLOPs 10^06 FLOPs
GigaFLOPs GFLOPs 10^09 FLOPs
TeraFLOPs TFLOPs 10^12 FLOPs
PetaFLOPs PFLOPs 10^15 FLOPs
ExaFLOPs EFLOPs 10^18 FLOPs
ZettaFLOPs ZFLOPs 10^21 FLOPs
YottaFLOPs YFLOPs 10^24 FLOPs
The Departmet of Energy ( DOE ) of the US is already thinking about a next generation of supercomputing systems after ExaScale ( 10^18 FLOPs ), that is ZettaScale ( 10^21 FLOPs )...
Frontier is 1.5 Exaflops IIRC and will be launching "soon". I forgot where El Capitan is at. 2 Exa should be competitive and if not the new record, at least close to it.Strategic supercomputer. Part of the strategy is ensuring multiple vendors have a chance at making something this big. Its not about picking the best. Its about fostering competition and having a big ecosystem of competing vendors. Intel may be losing right now, but in 10 years, Intel may come out with the best tech again. Giving Intel the chance to build a supercomputer of this size/scale will foster more competition in the long run.
Similarly, AMD, NVidia, and IBM have been given chances to make supercomputers even back in the days when Intel was the undisputed king.
The Department of Energy has a lot of power (nuclear power, hydro power, etc. etc.). They can afford these absurd costs in energy.