UPDATED 23:23 EDT / MARCH 04 2020

EMERGING TECH

HPE and AMD team on El Capitan supercomputer to manage US nuclear stockpile

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are set to make history by delivering the world’s largest supercomputer, designed to protect the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

Dubbed “El Capitan,” the supercomputer is being designed for the U.S. Department of Energy by Cray, which HPE acquired for $1.3 billion in May. The companies announced the plans today with partner Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Cray is synonymous with supercomputers, ever since founder Seymour Cray designed the Univac 1103, credited as one of the first-ever supercomputers. Cray went on to become a world leader in supercomputer design.

El Capitan is claimed to be the world’s fastest exascale supercomputer, delivering 10 times faster processing than any of its predecessors. Remarkably, the supercomputer is claimed to be able to deliver greater performance than the existing top 200 supercomputers combined.

The supercomputer is expected to come online in 2023. Under the hood, El Capitan will use next-generation AMD Radeon Instinct graphics processing unit chips, which are said to be based on a new compute-optimized architecture for workloads such as high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. The supercomputer will also use Epyc central processing units from AMD and the third-generation AMD Infinity Architecture for a high-bandwidth, low-latency connection between the CPUs and GPUs.

“This unprecedented computing capability, powered by advanced CPU and GPU technology from AMD, will sustain America’s position on the global stage in high-performance computing and provide an observable example of the commitment of the country to maintaining an unparalleled nuclear deterrent,” Lawrence Livermore National Lab Director Bill Goldstein said in a statement. “Today’s news provides a prime example of how government and industry can work together for the benefit of the entire nation.”

To say that El Capitan is groundbreaking is an understatement. While not technically in a new Cold War, the U.S. and China have been in what has been called a tech war going back more than a decade. Of the current top four supercomputers in the world, two are in the U.S. and two are in China, but when that’s extended out to the top 500, China is ahead, even if the U.S. has a performance advantage.

“This new system represents the a new kind of computer architecture and the highest end of supercomputers, which includes very tightly coupled processors, accelerators and memory,” said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “AMD is the only company right now that can do this who has the highest-end CPUs and GPUs, so the choice makes sense to me.”

The news comes after Honeywell International Inc. announced that it was building what it claims is the world’s most powerful quantum computer. The Honeywell computer, built in conjunction with International Business Machines Corp., is claimed to use ytterbium atoms for the qubits, which are suspended in an internally fabricated ion trap about the size of a football.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Photo: HPE

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU