The El Capitan supercomputer, powered by AMD, has taken the crown as the fastest supercomputer in the world. You’ll find it at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and built by HPE. This machine packs a punch with its AMD Instinct MI300A accelerated processing units, scoring an impressive 1.742 exaflops on the High-Performance Linpack benchmark, as listed in the latest Top500.
LLNL has a clear mission for El Capitan: nuclear security. It’s the first exascale-class computer for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and will play a key role in scientific discovery and national security. AMD highlights that this supercomputer is essential for maintaining the safety and reliability of the nation’s nuclear stockpile, all without the need for actual testing.
The supercomputer supports the NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship Programme. This initiative focuses on certifying the aging nuclear arsenal and tackling other vital security missions like non-proliferation and counter-terrorism efforts. Rob Neely, who directs the advanced simulation and computing programme at LLNL, emphasized the importance of El Capitan for performing detailed simulations that address complex scientific challenges facing national security.
El Capitan isn’t alone in this effort; it pairs with another system called Tuolumne. Together, they’re driving AI and machine learning in data analysis. El Capitan focuses on high-energy density issues like inertial confinement fusion research, while Tuolumne is set to tackle unclassified projects such as climate modeling and drug discovery. Bronis R de Supinski, LLNL’s chief technology officer, remarked on how El Capitan integrates AI with traditional simulation workloads, paving the way for discoveries across various scientific fields.
AMD’s cutting-edge technology, including its Instinct MI300X and MI325X accelerators, enhances AI performance and memory capacity. The MI300A APU combines CPU and GPU cores with stacked memory into a single unit, delivering remarkable efficiency for high-performance computing and AI tasks.
Across the globe, many organizations are leveraging AMD’s technology. For instance, the Italian energy company Eni is using AMD EPYC processors and Instinct GPUs to power its HPC 6 supercomputer. Similarly, the University of Paderborn will soon receive a new supercomputer featuring the latest fifth-generation AMD EPYC technology.
In an exciting development, IBM and AMD plan to work together to offer AMD Instinct MI300X accelerators as a service on IBM Cloud. This service, launching in early 2025, aims to enhance performance and energy efficiency for generative AI models, integrating support for these accelerators into IBM’s Watsonx AI platform and Red Hat Enterprise Linux for AI inferencing.