At ISC High Performance 2024, Intel announced in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) that the Aurora supercomputer has broken the exascale barrier at 1.012 exaflops and is the fastest AI system in the world dedicated to AI for open science, achieving 10.6 AI exaflops. Intel will also detail the crucial role of open ecosystems in driving AI-accelerated high performancehigh -performance computing (HPC). “The Aurora supercomputer surpassing exascale will allow it to pave the road to tomorrow’s discoveries. From understanding climate patterns to unraveling the mysteries of the universe, supercomputers serve as a compass guiding us toward solving truly difficult scientific challenges that may improve humanity,” said Ogi Brkic, Intel vice president and general manager of Data Center AI Solutions.
Designed as an AI-centric system from its inception, Aurora will allow researchers to harness generative AI models to accelerate scientific discovery. Significant progress has been made in Argonne’s early AI-driven research. Success stories include mapping the human brain’s 80 billion neurons, high-energy particle physics enhanced by deep learning, and drug design and discovery accelerated by machine learning, among others. The Aurora supercomputer is an expansive system with 166 racks, 10,624 compute blades, 21,248 Intel Xeon CPU Max Series processors, and 63,744 Intel Data Center GPU Max Series units, making it one of the world’s largest GPU clusters.