Linux, the open-source operating system that runs on millions of devices around the world, has once again proven its dominance in the field of supercomputing. According to the latest edition of the TOP500 list, which ranks the world's most powerful supercomputers, Linux powers all of the top 500 systems for the 11th consecutive time.
The TOP500 list, which is updated twice a year, measures the performance of supercomputers using a benchmark called High Performance Linpack (HPL), which solves a dense system of linear equations. The list also provides information on the architecture, processor, memory, operating system, and other features of each supercomputer.
The latest list, released in November 2023, shows that the world's fastest supercomputer is still Fugaku, a system developed by Japan's RIKEN Center for Computational Science and Fujitsu. Fugaku achieved a record-breaking performance of 442.01 petaflops (quadrillions of floating-point operations per second) on the HPL benchmark, more than twice as fast as the second-ranked system, Summit, a system developed by IBM and the US Department of Energy.
Fugaku, which means Mount Fuji in Japanese, is also the first supercomputer to top the list with ARM processors, a type of chip that is widely used in smartphones and tablets. Fugaku uses more than 150,000 A64FX processors, each with 48 cores and 32 GB of memory. Fugaku runs on a customized version of Linux called Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.2, which supports the ARM architecture.
Summit, which is located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, USA, achieved a performance of 148.6 petaflops on the HPL benchmark. Summit uses more than 27,000 IBM Power9 processors, each with 22 cores and 512 GB of memory, and more than 27,000 NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs, each with 16 GB of memory. Summit runs on a customized version of Linux called Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.6, which supports the Power architecture.
The third-ranked system on the list is Sierra, another system developed by IBM and the US Department of Energy, which is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, USA. Sierra achieved a performance of 94.6 petaflops on the HPL benchmark. Sierra uses more than 17,000 IBM Power9 processors, each with 22 cores and 256 GB of memory, and more than 17,000 NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs, each with 32 GB of memory. Sierra runs on the same version of Linux as Summit, RHEL 7.6.
The fourth-ranked system on the list is Sunway TaihuLight, a system developed by China's National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering and Technology, which is located at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, China. Sunway TaihuLight achieved a performance of 93 petaflops on the HPL benchmark. Sunway TaihuLight uses more than 40,000 Sunway SW26010 processors, each with 256 cores and 32 GB of memory. Sunway TaihuLight runs on a customized version of Linux called Sunway RaiseOS 2.0.5, which supports the Sunway architecture.
The fifth-ranked system on the list is Selene, a system developed by NVIDIA, which is located at the NVIDIA headquarters in Santa Clara, California, USA. Selene achieved a performance of 63.4 petaflops on the HPL benchmark. Selene uses more than 2,000 AMD EPYC 7742 processors, each with 64 cores and 256 GB of memory, and more than 5,000 NVIDIA A100 GPUs, each with 40 GB of memory. Selene runs on a customized version of Linux called Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, which supports the x86_64 architecture.
The rest of the top 10 systems on the list are Tianhe-2A, a system developed by China's National University of Defense Technology, which is located at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou, China; Perlmutter, a system developed by Cray and the US Department of Energy, which is located at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center in Berkeley, California, USA; HPC5, a system developed by Dell and Eni, which is located at the Green Data Center in Ferrera Erbognone, Italy; Dammam-7, a system developed by Huawei and Saudi Aramco, which is located at the EXPEC Advanced Research Center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; and JUWELS Booster Module, a system developed by Atos and Forschungszentrum Jülich, which is located at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Jülich, Germany.
All of these systems, as well as the other 490 systems on the list, run on some variant of Linux, the operating system that was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 as a hobby project. Linux is now the most popular operating system for supercomputers, as well as for servers, cloud computing, embedded devices, and smartphones. Linux is known for its flexibility, scalability, security, and performance, as well as for its large and active community of developers and users.
Linux has been powering the world's fastest supercomputers since 2004, when the IBM Blue Gene/L system, which ran on a customized version of Linux called CNK, topped the list with a performance of 70.72 teraflops (trillions of floating-point operations per second). Since then, Linux has never lost its lead, and has continued to evolve and improve along with the hardware and software innovations in the field of supercomputing.
Linux is not only the operating system of choice for the world's fastest supercomputers, but also for the world's most energy-efficient supercomputers. According to the latest edition of the Green500 list, which ranks the world's most energy-efficient supercomputers based on their performance per watt, Linux powers all of the top 500 systems for the 10th consecutive time.
The Green500 list, which is also updated twice a year, measures the performance per watt of supercomputers using the same HPL benchmark as the TOP500 list. The list also provides information on the power consumption, power efficiency, and carbon footprint of each supercomputer.
The latest list, released in November 2023, shows that the world's most energy-efficient supercomputer is still MN-3, a system developed by Preferred Networks, which is located at the Preferred Networks headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. MN-3 achieved a performance of 21.17 petaflops on the HPL benchmark, with a power consumption of 1.27 megawatts (MW) and a power efficiency of 16.65 gigaflops per watt (GFlops/W). MN-3 uses more than 1,000 NVIDIA DGX A100 systems, each with eight NVIDIA A100 GPUs and two AMD EPYC 7742 processors. MN-3 runs on a customized version of Linux called Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, which supports the x86_64 architecture.
The second-ranked system on the list is Selene, the same system that ranked fifth on the TOP500 list. Selene achieved a performance of 63.4 petaflops on the HPL benchmark, with a power consumption of 3.99 MW and a power efficiency of 15.88 GFlops/W. Selene runs on the same version of Linux as MN-3, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
The third-ranked system on the list is JUWELS Booster Module, the same system that ranked tenth on the TOP500 list. JUWELS Booster Module achieved a performance of 44.1 petaflops on the HPL benchmark, with a power consumption of 2.84 MW and a power efficiency of 15.53 GFlops/W. JUWELS Booster Module runs on a customized version of Linux called ParTec ClusterWare 7.1, which supports the x86_64 architecture.
The rest of the top 10 systems on the list are NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, a system developed by NVIDIA, which is located at the NVIDIA headquarters in Santa Clara, California, USA; HPC5, the same system that ranked eighth on the TOP500 list; Perlmutter, the same system that ranked seventh on the TOP500 list; Dammam-7, the same system that ranked ninth on the TOP500 list; NVIDIA DGX SaturnV Volta, a system developed by NVIDIA, which is located at the NVIDIA headquarters in Santa Clara, California, USA; NVIDIA DGX A100, a system developed by NVIDIA, which is located at the NVIDIA headquarters in Santa Clara, California, USA; and NVIDIA DGX-2H POD, a system developed by NVIDIA, which is located at the NVIDIA headquarters in Santa Clara, California, USA.
All of these systems, as well as the other 490 systems on the list, run on some variant of Linux, the operating system that has been leading the way in the field of green computing. Linux is known for its low power consumption, high power efficiency, and low carbon footprint, as well as for its support for various power management features.