November 16, 2011
RIKEN
University of Tsukuba
Fujitsu Limited
In addition to LINPACK, demonstrates high performance
in all four benchmarks evaluating overall supercomputer
performance
Tokyo and Tsukuba, Japan, November 16,
2011 - RIKEN, the University of Tsukuba, and
Fujitsu Limited today announced that they received
top-ranking in all four benchmarks for the performance
results of the "K computer"() at the 2011 HPC
Challenge Awards(). The awards were announced on November
15 (US Pacific Standard Time) at SC11, the International
Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking,
Storage and Analysis taking place in Seattle, USA. The
first-place rankings in the HPC Challenge Awards were
received in the following four benchmarks used for
evaluating the all-around performance of a supercomputer:
1) Global HPL; 2) Global RandomAccess; 3) EP STREAM (Triad)
per system; and 4) Global FFT.
The HPC Challenge Awards demonstrate that, in addition to
achieving successive top-place rankings on the June and
November 2011 editions of the TOP500 list measuring LINPACK
computational speed, the K computer is evaluated very
highly in all-around performance as a general-purpose
supercomputer. The K computer is currently under joint
development by RIKEN and Fujitsu.
Background
RIKEN and Fujitsu have been working together to develop the
K computer, with the aim of beginning shared use by
November 2012, as a part of the High-Performance Computing
Infrastructure (HPCI) initiative led by Japan's
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology (MEXT).
The HPC Challenge benchmarks are benchmark programs
designed to evaluate the overall performance of
supercomputers in terms of processing performance in 28
tests derived from frequently-used computational patterns
in the field of scientific computation. Among these, the
four challenging benchmarks are: 1) Global HPL (operating
speed in solving large-scale simultaneous linear
equations); 2) Global RandomAccess (random memory access
performance in parallel processing); 3) EP STREAM (Triad)
per system (memory access speed under multiple loads); and
4) Global FFT (total performance of Fast Fourier
Transform). The HPC Challenge Class 1 Awards are awarded to
the top-ranked performance on each of these four
benchmarks.
The University of Tsukuba contributed extensively to
increasing the computational speed for the Global FFT
benchmark. As a result, the performance results of the K
computer were submitted to the Class 1 award category.
The top three rankings achieved on the four benchmarks for
the HPC Challenge Class 1 Awards for 2011 are as follows:
Top 3 Rankings of Four Benchmarks for HPC Challenge Class 1
Awards 2011
Global HPL
|
Performance (TFLOP/s)
|
System
|
Institutional Facility
|
1st place
|
2,118
|
K computer
|
RIKEN
|
1st runner up
|
1,533
|
Cray XT5
|
ORNL
|
2nd runner up
|
736
|
Cray XT5
|
UTK
|
Global RandomAccess
|
Performance (GUPS)
|
System
|
Institutional Facility
|
1st place
|
121
|
K computer
|
RIKEN
|
1st runner up
|
117
|
IBM BG/P
|
LLNL
|
2nd runner up
|
103
|
IBM BG/P
|
ANL
|
EP STREAM (Triad) per system
|
Performance (TB/s)
|
System
|
Institutional Facility
|
1st place
|
812
|
K computer
|
RIKEN
|
1st runner up
|
398
|
Cray XT5
|
ORNL
|
2nd runner up
|
267
|
IBM BG/P
|
LLNL
|
Global FFT
|
Performance (TFLOP/s)
|
System
|
Institutional Facility
|
1st place
|
34.7
|
K computer
|
RIKEN
|
1st runner up
|
11.9
|
NEC SX-9
|
JAMSTEC
|
2nd runner up
|
10.7
|
Cray XT5
|
ORNL
|
The HPC Challenge Class 1 Awards evaluate the performance
of supercomputers from four different angles, and the K
computer delivers world-class performance on all four
benchmarks.
With the understanding that its use would be widely shared
by researchers and engineers inside and outside RIKEN from
the very start, the development of the K computer has
proceeded with the aim of creating a supercomputer that
combines superior computational performance with the
versatility that enables it to run applications for a wide
range of fields. The HPC Challenge results demonstrate the
versatility of the K computer and the all-around high
performance levels it delivers as a supercomputer.
Glossary & Notes
The "K computer", which is being jointly developed
by RIKEN and Fujitsu, is part of the High-Performance
Computing Infrastructure (HPCI) initiative led by Japan's
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology (MEXT). The K computer's availability for
shared use is scheduled for 2012. The "K computer"
is the nickname RIKEN has been using for the supercomputer of
this project since July 2010. "K" comes from the
Japanese Kanji character "Kei" which means ten peta
or 10 to the 16th power. In its original sense,
"Kei" expresses a large gateway, and it is hoped
that the system will be a new gateway to computational
science. The HPC Challenge Awards consist of the Class 1
benchmark performance competition and the Class 2 "Most
Productivity" awards for the most "elegant"
implementation of computationally intensive kernels. The
Class 1 awards consist of the following four benchmarks, each
of which evaluates the performance of key system components
(CPU computational performance, memory access performance,
network transmission performance).
- Global HPL: operating speed in solving large-scale
simultaneous linear equations
- Global RandomAccess: random memory access performance in
parallel processing
- EP STREAM (Triad) per system: memory access speed under
multiple loads
- Global FFT: total performance of Fast Fourier Transform
About RIKEN
RIKEN is Japan's flagship research institute devoted to
basic and applied research. Over 2500 papers by RIKEN
researchers are published every year in reputable
scientific and technical journals, covering topics ranging
across a broad spectrum of disciplines including physics,
chemistry, biology, medical science and engineering.
RIKEN's advanced research environment and strong
emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration has earned
itself an unparalleled reputation for scientific excellence
in Japan and around the world. For more information, please
see: http://www.riken.jp/.
About Tsukuba University
The University of Tsukuba aims to establish free exchange
and close relationship in both basic and applied sciences
with educational and research organizations and academic
communities in Japan and overseas. The university makes a
contribution to the world through its educational system
that seeks to make the most of students' creativity and
individuality.
http://www.tsukuba.ac.jp/english/
http://www.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp/CCS/eng/
About Fujitsu
Fujitsu is a leading provider of information and
communication technology (ICT)-based business solutions for
the global marketplace. With approximately 170,000
employees supporting customers in over 100 countries,
Fujitsu combines a worldwide corps of systems and services
experts with highly reliable computing and communications
products and advanced microelectronics to deliver added
value to customers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited
(TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.5 trillion
yen (US$55 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31,
2011. For more information, please see: www.fujitsu.com.
Press Contacts
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Tel: +81-78-940-5623, 5624
University of Tsukuba
Public Relations Office, Center for Computational
Sciences
E-mail: pr@ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp
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