Performance of fastest supercomputers grow less fast

The performance growth of the world’s 500 fastest computers is slowing. This is evident from the top 500 list of this half year. The Chinese supercomputer Tianhe-2 is the fastest supercomputer in the world with its 33.9 petaflops for the third time in a row.

According to the organization behind the list, the total combined growth of peak speeds is this low for the first time since its introduction in 1993. The organization cites the powerful computers at the top of the list as the main reason for the slowdown in overall growth. Putting these big supercomputers down would mostly slow the growth at the top of the list. At the bottom of the list, where there are generally small and medium-sized supercomputers, there was actually more growth.

Compared to the previous list, which came out in November 2013, only the last place within the top 10 has changed. The German SuperMUC with its peak speed of 2.9 petaflops lost tenth place to the American Cray XC30 with peak speeds of 3.1 petaflops. The total combined speed of the list increased from 250 to 274 petaflops compared to six months ago. Speeds of the top 500 supercomputers are measured via the Linpack benchmark.

Image courtesy of HPCWire

Intel also continues to be the primary supplier of processors for the top 500 computers; 85.4 percent of all computers have a processor from the American manufacturer. The share of AMD processors decreased: that dropped from nine percent to six percent. The number of computers on the list that have an IBM processor remained the same at eight percent.

IBM is gaining ground on the list as 176 systems on the list come from the manufacturer. HP’s share of computers fell from 196 systems to 182 compared to six months ago, but it nevertheless remained the main supplier.