A few weeks ago, Intel and AMD joined forces so that the x86 architecture continues to evolve in the coming years and does not stagnate as it is today, where there has been little improvement. This is not the only collaboration between the two companies, at least directly since Japan is counting on the two companies to create a new supercomputer.
Japan plans to begin building a supercomputer for the National Institute of Quantum Science and Technology. To carry out this task, it placed its trust in the Japanese company NEC.
After leaving the world of telephony, the Japanese company NEC focused on computer and network technology, quickly adapting to variations and new market demands without neglecting the environment.
New supercomputer with 40.4 PetaFLOPS
NEC will provide 360 NEC LX 204Bin-3 server platforms powered by 720 processors Intel Xeon 6900P equipped with DDR5 MRDIMM memory and 70 NEC LX 401Bax-3GA model platforms with 280 GPUs AMD Instinct MI300A.
So that the heat generated during operation is not a problem, the cooling tasks fall to the company Giga Computing, which uses liquid cooling. The power of theoretical performance based on hardware from NEC, Intel and AMD is 40.4 PetaFLOPS.
This level of performance is 2.7 times higher than that currently used by the two systems of the National Institute of Fusion Sciences and the National Institute of Quantum Science and Technology. The primary use that will be given to this equipment is to advance the field of fission science, AI applications and Big Data.
Regarding storage, this supercomputer will have the DDN company through the ES400NVX2 with a total capacity of 42.2 in and which uses the Luster ExaScaler file system.
The software used by this supercomputer and which is responsible for managing workloads and optimizing the performance of AMD accelerators is Altair PBS Professional in combination with the bus InfiniBand
If the established forecasts come true, the new supercomputer with Intel processors and AMD accelerators will be put into operation in July 2025. This supercomputer will be assembled at the facilities of the National Institute of Quantum Science and Technology in Aomori Prefecture .
Nearly 60% of the energy produced in Japan comes from more than 50 nuclear installations widespread throughout the country. Due to its importance, the country is largely dependent on it, with nuclear energy being a state issue. With this new supercomputer, Japan wishes to advance research in the field of nuclear fission, particularly in the manufacturing of DEMO reactors that leave no carbon footprint.
