High-performance computing (HPC) is the use of

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...

s and

computer cluster A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software. The newes ...

s to solve advanced computation problems.

Overview

HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and

parallel programming Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

into a multidisciplinary field that combines

digital electronics Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. It deals with the relationship between Binary number, binary inputs and outputs by passing electrical s ...

, computer architecture,

system software System software is software designed to provide a platform for other software. An example of system software is an operating system (OS) (like macOS, Linux, Android, and Microsoft Windows). Application software is software that allows users to d ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

s and computational techniques. HPC technologies are the tools and systems used to implement and create high performance computing systems. Recently, HPC systems have shifted from supercomputing to computing clusters and grids. Because of the need of networking in clusters and grids, High Performance Computing Technologies are being promoted by the use of a collapsed network backbone, because the collapsed backbone architecture is simple to troubleshoot and upgrades can be applied to a single router as opposed to multiple ones. HPC integrates with data analytics in AI engineering workflows to generate new data streams that increase simulation ability to answer the "what if" questions. The term is most commonly associated with computing used for scientific research or

computational science Computational science, also known as scientific computing, technical computing or scientific computation (SC), is a division of science, and more specifically the Computer Sciences, which uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and s ...

. A related term, high-performance technical computing (HPTC), generally refers to the engineering applications of cluster-based computing (such as

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid dynamics, fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required ...

and the building and testing of virtual prototypes). HPC has also been applied to

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...

uses such as

data warehouse In computing, a data warehouse (DW or DWH), also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system used for Business intelligence, reporting and data analysis and is a core component of business intelligence. Data warehouses are central Re ...

s, line of business (LOB) applications, and

transaction processing In computer science, transaction processing is information processing that is divided into individual, indivisible operations called ''transactions''. Each transaction must succeed or fail as a complete unit; it can never be only partially c ...

. High-performance computing (HPC) as a term arose after the term "supercomputing". HPC is sometimes used as a synonym for supercomputing; but, in other contexts, "supercomputer" is used to refer to a more powerful subset of "high-performance computers", and the term "supercomputing" becomes a subset of "high-performance computing". The potential for confusion over the use of these terms is apparent. Because most current applications are not designed for HPC technologies but are retrofitted, they are not designed or tested for scaling to more powerful processors or machines. Since networking clusters and grids use multiple processors and computers, these scaling problems can cripple critical systems in future supercomputing systems. Therefore, either the existing tools do not address the needs of the high performance computing community or the HPC community is unaware of these tools. A few examples of commercial HPC technologies include: * the simulation of car crashes for structural design * molecular interaction for new drug design * the airflow over automobiles or airplanes In government and research institutions, scientists simulate galaxy formation and evolution, fusion energy, and global warming, as well as work to create more accurate short- and long-term weather forecasts. The world's tenth most powerful supercomputer in 2008, IBM Roadrunner (located at the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

) simulated the performance, safety, and reliability of nuclear weapons and certifies their functionality.

TOP500

TOP500 ranks the world's 500 fastest high-performance computers, as measured by the High Performance LINPACK (HPL) benchmark. Not all existing computers are ranked, either because they are ineligible (e.g., they cannot run the HPL benchmark) or because their owners have not submitted an HPL score (e.g., because they do not wish the size of their system to become public information, for defense reasons). In addition, the use of the single LINPACK benchmark is controversial, in that no single measure can test all aspects of a high-performance computer. To help overcome the limitations of the LINPACK test, the U.S. government commissioned one of its originators, Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee, to create a suite of benchmark tests that includes LINPACK and others, called the HPC Challenge benchmark suite. This evolving suite has been used in some HPC procurements, but, because it is not reducible to a single number, it has been unable to overcome the publicity advantage of the less useful TOP500 LINPACK test. The TOP500 list is updated twice a year, once in June at the ISC European Supercomputing Conference and again at a US Supercomputing Conference in November. Many ideas for the new wave of

grid computing Grid computing is the use of widely distributed computer resources to reach a common goal. A computing grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve many files. Grid computing is distinguished fro ...

were originally borrowed from HPC.

High performance computing in the cloud

Traditionally, HPC has involved an on-premises infrastructure, investing in supercomputers or computer clusters. Over the last decade,

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

has grown in popularity for offering computer resources in the commercial sector regardless of their investment capabilities. Some characteristics like scalability and

containerization Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers (also called shipping containers, or International Organization for Standardization, ISO containers). Containerization, also referred as container stuf ...

also have raised interest in academia. However security in the cloud concerns such as data confidentiality are still considered when deciding between cloud or on-premise HPC resources.

Current leading Supercomputers

Below is a list of the main HPCs by computing power, as reported in the Top500 list: *

El Capitan El Capitan (; ) is a vertical Rock formations in the United States, rock formation in Yosemite National Park, on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The El Capitan Granite, granite monolith is about from base to summit alo ...

: this HPE Cray EX255a system reaches 1.742 exaFLOPS with 1,051,392 CPU cores and 9,988,224 accelerator cores, totaling 11,039,616 cores. It uses Slingshot-11 interconnect technology and is housed at the

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now i ...

, USA. *

Frontier A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. Australia The term "frontier" was frequently used in colonial Australia in the meaning of country that borders the unknown or uncivilised, th ...

: boasting 1.353 exaFLOPS, this HPE Cray EX235a system features 614,656 CPU cores and 8,451,520 accelerator cores, making a total of 9,066,176 cores. It operates with Slingshot-11 interconnects at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...

, USA. *

Aurora An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

: this Intel-powered system delivers 1.012 exaFLOPS, leveraging

Xeon Xeon (; ) is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded markets. It was introduced in June 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same archite ...

and Ponte Vecchio architectures. It is installed at

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United Sta ...

, USA. * Eagle: powered by Intel Xeon Platinum 8480C 48C 2GHz processors and NVIDIA H100 GPUs, Eagle reaches 561.20 petaFLOPS of computing power, with 2,073,600 cores. It features NVIDIA Infiniband NDR for high-speed connectivity and is hosted by

Microsoft Azure Microsoft Azure, or just Azure ( /ˈæʒər, ˈeɪʒər/ ''AZH-ər, AY-zhər'', UK also /ˈæzjʊər, ˈeɪzjʊər/ ''AZ-ure, AY-zure''), is the cloud computing platform developed by Microsoft. It has management, access and development of ...

, USA. * HPC6: the most powerful industrial supercomputer in the world, HPC6 was developed by

Eni Eni is an Italian oil and gas corporation. Eni or ENI may refer to: Businesses and organisations * Escuela Nacional de Inteligencia, the Argentine intelligence academy * Groupe des écoles nationales d’ingénieurs (Groupe ENI), a French engi ...

and launched in November 2024. With 606 petaFLOPS of computing power, it is used for energy research and operates in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. It is located in the Eni Green Data Center in Ferrera Erbognone (PV). * Fugaku: developed by Fujitsu, this system achieves 442.01 petaFLOPS using A64FX 48C 2.2GHz processors and Tofu interconnect D technology. It is located at RIKEN Center for Computational Science,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. *

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

: this HPE Cray EX254n system reaches 434.90 petaFLOPS, powered by

NVIDIA Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

Grace 72C 3.1GHz processors and NVIDIA GH200 Superchips, connected through Slingshot-11 interconnects. It is located at CSCS,

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. *

LUMI LUMI (Large Unified Modern Infrastructure) is a petascale supercomputer located at the CSC data center in Kajaani, Finland. In January 2023, the computer became the fastest supercomputer in Europe. The completed system consists of 362,496 core ...

: one of Europe's fastest supercomputers, LUMI achieves 379.70 petaFLOPS with

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

Optimized 3rd Generation EPYC 64C 2GHz processors and AMD Instinct MI250X accelerators. It is hosted by CSC,

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, as part of the EuroHPC initiative. * Leonardo: developed under the EuroHPC initiative, this BullSequana XH2000 system reaches 241.20 petaFLOPS with

Platinum 8358 32C 2.6GHz processors and NVIDIA A100 SXM4 64GB accelerators. It is installed at CINECA,

. * Tuolumne: Tuolumne achieves 208.10 petaFLOPS and is powered by AMD 4th Gen EPYC 24C 1.8GHz processors and AMD Instinct MI300A accelerators. It operates at

, USA. * MareNostrum 5 ACC: this BullSequana XH3000 system runs at 175.30 petaFLOPS, featuring Xeon Platinum 8460Y+ 32C 2.3GHz processors and NVIDIA H100 64GB accelerators. It is hosted by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC),

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, as part of EuroHPC.

References

External links