El Capitan Is Now the Most Powerful Supercomputer in the World. Armed With AMD Chips, Its Performance Is Spectacular

  • El Capitan leads the TOP500 list of supercomputers with a performance of 1.742 exaflops.

  • It currently ranks 18th on the Green500 with a power of 29,581 kW and an efficiency of 58.889 GFlops/watt.

November 20, 2024, 15:00 ET

Juan Carlos López

Senior Writer

An engineer by training. A science and tech journalist by passion, vocation, and conviction. I've been writing professionally for over two decades, and I suspect I still have a long way to go. At Xataka, I write about many topics, but I mainly enjoy covering nuclear fusion, quantum physics, quantum computers, microprocessors and TVs. LinkedIn

Frontier, the ambitious machine at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is no longer the most powerful supercomputer. The first spot on the TOP500 now belongs to El Capitan, housed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and built by Hewlett Packard. AMD's Instinct MI300A APUs provide its raw power, working alongside EPYC 9005 processors.

As expected, AMD celebrated its hardware's presence in the world's most powerful supercomputer. “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,” Forrest Norrod, executive vice president of AMD, said.

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Its 1,742 Exaflops Put It Right at the Top

El Capitan’s specifications are extraordinary. Its predecessor, Frontier, already boasted impressive numbers, but Hewlett Packard’s new machine surpasses them significantly. El Capitan has 11,039,616 cores, delivering 1,742 PFlops/s Rmax and 2,746.38 PFlops/s Rpeak. By comparison, Frontier has 9,066,176 cores and delivers 1,353 PFlops/s Rmax and 2,055.72 PFlops/s Rpeak.

One of El Capitan’s key applications will likely be in nuclear fusion research.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory plans to use this supercomputer for various scientific projects. One of its key applications will likely be in nuclear fusion research. The lab is home to the National Ignition Facility, which is conducting inertial confinement nuclear fusion experiments.

In addition to its performance numbers, El Capitan excels in energy efficiency. It ranks 18th on the Green500 list, with a power output of 29,581 kW and an efficiency of 58.889 GFlops/watt. For comparison, Frontier ranks 22nd, with a power output of 24,607 kW and an efficiency of 54.984 GFlops/watt. El Capitan’s numbers make it the most powerful supercomputer, as well as one of the most efficient, currently available.

Image | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Related | IBM Wants to Be at the Forefront of Quantum Computing: It's Planning to Unveil a 10,000-Qubit Computer by 2029

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