HPE-built direct liquid-cooled supercomputers top November 2024 lists of fastest and most energy-efficient systems in the world

HPE shared this historic milestone at SC24 in Atlanta, where the brightest minds in high performance computing (HPC), research and discovery, academia and manufacturing assemble to share knowledge and advance progress in supercomputing and scientific innovation. HPE-built supercomputers are collectively No. 1 in performance share, accounting for more than 5.75 exaflops among the TOP500 list of the world’s fastest systems. Among the top 10 supercomputers, seven run on HPE’s leadership-class HPE Cray Supercomputing EX systems based on the industry’s first 100% fanless direct liquid cooling system architecture.

El Capitan was designed to help the United States maintain its competitive edge in national security using high-fidelity modeling and simulation to solve challenging problems that are only within reach using exascale computing. It will also further the country’s investment in artificial intelligence (AI) to advance scientific research in areas such as nuclear science, materials discovery and fusion energy. More information on El Capitan’s achievements can be found here.

Frontier, ranking as the second-fastest supercomputer at 1.353 exaflops, was the first system in the world to break the exascale barrier in 2022. Built in collaboration with ORNL and AMD, Frontier ushered in the modern era of AI-enabled supercomputers worldwide. Researchers using Frontier leverage AI to advance progress on a variety of subjects including cancer research, drug discovery, nuclear fusion, exotic materials science, superefficient engine design and supernovae.

At No. 3 is Aurora, co-built by Intel and HPE, which leverages AI technologies to advance data-intensive research on aircraft design, cancer treatments and sustainable energy. Researchers in the Aurora Early Science Program are making important strides in connectomics by 3D-mapping neuron connections in the brain and were nominated for a Gordon Bell Prize for their work developing a computing framework to accelerate the design of new protein sequences that can be used in vaccines or materials science.

HPE’s supercomputing leadership also extends into Europe with HPE Cray Supercomputing EX powering the region’s three most powerful AI-enabled systems.

Eni’s HPC6 made its first appearance on the TOP500 with a debut ranking of No. 5, verifying it as the world’s most powerful enterprise supercomputer. Built by HPE for Eni, one of the world’s largest energy providers, HPC6 is being used to advance discovery and engineering related to energy transition. HPC6, located in Eni’s Green Data Center in Italy, is the latest example of the company’s long-term dedication to leveraging AI, modeling and simulation to study energy sources.

The Alps supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) ranked No. 7 with 434.9 petaflops of performance. Researchers leverage AI capabilities on Alps to advance studies in climate and weather, astrophysics, computational fluid dynamics, life sciences, quantum chemistry and particle physics.

The LUMI supercomputer in Finland, built for EuroHPC JU and hosted by the LUMI consortium at CSC – IT Center for Science, ranked No. 8 on the TOP500 list. A pan-European supercomputer, LUMI is one of the EuroHPC systems used to run climate and extreme weather simulations for Destination Earth, an initiative of the European Commission to develop a highly accurate digital replica of the Earth system to inform decision-making about climate change.

Additionally, Tuolumne, a companion system to El Capitan built for LLNL, ranked No. 10 with 208.1 petaflops of performance. As an unclassified system, Tuolumne will be dedicated to open science and is available to researchers to make advancements in climate modeling, computational drug discovery earthquake modeling and advanced manufacturing.

HPE’s 100% fanless direct liquid-cooled solutions featured among most energy-efficient supercomputers on the planet

Supercomputers are designed for both precision and speed and this makes it ideal for scientists trying to create new medication or researchers advancing the world’s understanding of climate or space. However, the growing energy demands of large HPC/AI systems make energy efficiency more important than ever. With 50 years of experience deploying reliable direct liquid cooling systems to customers, HPE supercomputers feature eight elements of cooling, which reduce energy consumption of the cooling infrastructure by up to 94% as compared to computer room air handler-based air-coolingⁱ.

Additional optimizations built throughout the HPE Cray Supercomputing EX solutions include the liquid-cooled HPE Slingshot interconnect, which is built with Dragonfly topology, enabling supercomputers to complete workloads faster and minimize overall energy requirements. Moreover, HPE HPC software solutions allow customers to monitor and regulate power utilization, driving reduced energy consumption. Together with HPE’s liquid cooling expertise and the industry’s first 100% fanless direct liquid cooling system architecture, these solutions demonstrate why many of the world’s most energy-efficient supercomputers are built by HPE.