Intel's Aurora Supercomputer Debuts On TOP500 In Spot #2

The Aurora supercomputer originally was supposed to be completed by Intel and Cray/HPE for the Argonne National Laboratory back in 2018. Now at the end of 2023, it's made its first debut on the TOP500 list... But only as a partial deployment and is coming in at spot number two.

Aurora with its delays since inception has been targeting to exceed two exaFLOPS of peak double-precision compute with its combination of 4th Gen Xeon Scalable Max "Sapphire Rapids" processors and Intel Data Center GPU Max Series hardware. But for its initial debut and not having the system fully scaled up, it's coming in at 585.34 petaFLOPS... Well short of its full capacity and disappointing for those who hoped it would make its full debut in time for the autumn TOP500 ranking as the world's fastest supercomputer.

Previously announced Aurora specs.

Aurora is made up of 10,624 compute blades for a combined 21,248 Intel Xeon Max Series CPUs and 63,744 Intel Max Series GPUs. The hardware has been installed since earlier this year at ANL but Intel and their engineering partners continue work on properly scaling up the system and fine-tuning the software. With this fall's TOP500 submission not being the full supercomputer, it hits only the second spot at the half exaFLOP mark. The AMD-powered Frontier supercomputer continues to maintain the top spot at 1.1 exaFLOPS and the sole exaFLOP supercomputer in the ranking.

Intel though is promoting the fact that 23 new systems in the TOP500 list are powered by Intel hardware. Among the new Intel supercomputers are the first phase of UK's Dawn supercomputer, SuperMUC-NG phase two in Germany, and Crossroads at the Alamas National Laboratory. Aurora's second spot debut has in turn bumped the A64FX-powered Fugaku down to fourth with Microsoft's Eagle supercomputer taking the third spot.

Intel expects to have Aurora fully online in 2024. Meanwhile AMD is already assembling El Capitan that should be even faster than the fully-completed Aurora, so we'll see how the TOP500 plays out in 2024 as quite an exciting time for HPC.

AMD meanwhile in their advanced communications are promoting the fact that AMD is powering now 140 of the TOP500 list and that Frontier remains in first place and the sole supercomputer past the exaFLOP mark. Frontier also places #8 on the Green 500 list. AMD also notes that Aurora's partial submission is already pulling more power than the entire Frontier supercomputer while at the much lower performance rating.

Another interesting anecdote passed along is AMD powering 8 out of the top ten most efficient supercomputers on the Green 500 list.

The updated TOP500 list is available from TOP500.org.