AMD's El Capitan recognised as fastest supercomputer globally

AMD has announced its sustained leadership in high-performance computing with the El Capitan supercomputer being recognised as the fastest in the world.

The El Capitan is based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and is powered by AMD Instinct MI300A APUs. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) built the system, which has achieved a High-Performance Linpack score of 1.742 exaflops, as per the latest Top500 list. In addition to El Capitan, the Frontier system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory also features prominently, with both systems placed at numbers 18 and 22 respectively on the Green500 list, highlighting AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct GPUs' efficiency in high-performance computing workloads.

"We are thrilled to see El Capitan become the second AMD powered supercomputer to break the exaflop barrier and become the fastest supercomputer in the world. Showcasing the incredible performance and efficiency of the AMD Instinct MI300 APUs, this groundbreaking machine is a testament to the dedicated work between AMD, LLNL and HPE," stated Forrest Norrod, Executive Vice President and General Manager at AMD.

Rob Neely, Director of LLNL's Advanced Simulation and Computing Programme, underscored the supercomputer's significance: "El Capitan is crucial to the National Nuclear Security Administration's core mission and significantly bolsters our ability to perform large ensembles of high-fidelity 3D simulations that address the intricate scientific challenges facing the mission."

Bronis R. de Supinski, LLNL's Chief Technology Officer for Livermore Computing, added, "Leveraging the AMD Instinct MI300A APUs, we've built a system that was once unimaginable, pushing the absolute boundaries of computational performance while maintaining exceptional energy efficiency. With AI becoming increasingly prevalent in our field, El Capitan allows us to integrate AI with our traditional simulation and modeling workloads, opening new avenues for discovery across various scientific disciplines."

AMD has secured its position at the forefront of high-performance computing, with five out of the top ten systems on the Top500 list being powered by its technology. These systems include El Capitan, Frontier, and other notable supercomputing platforms such as HPC6 from ENI, Lumi, and Tuolumne.

AMD has also announced a collaboration with IBM aimed at deploying AMD Instinct MI300X accelerators as a service on IBM Cloud. This collaboration targets enhanced performance for generative AI and high-performance computing applications and further establishes the use of these accelerators within IBM's watsonx AI and data platform, as well as Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI inferencing support.

The power and influence of AMD components extend beyond these projects. Recent developments include the deployment of AMD technology in Eni's HPC 6 supercomputer, which ranks as the fifth fastest globally, as well as emerging implementations at the University of Paderborn, Sigma2 AS in Norway, and a next-generation system for Japan's National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology.

El Capitan, alongside its contribution to the National Nuclear Security Administration, emphasises AMD's role in advancing scientific discovery and innovation through comprehensive computational capabilities and improved energy efficiencies. These supercomputers offer enormous potential in research fields such as climate modeling, materials science, and AI development.