Lenovo to build Netherlands' most powerful supercomputer, expected to be completed by mid-2021
Lenovo is building a new supercomputer cluster for the Dutch academic organization SURF, a cooperative association of educational and research institute, expected to be completed by mid-2021.
When delivered, the supercomputer cluster will have a peak performance of 14 petaflop / s, making it the most powerful supercomputer in the Netherlands, according to SURF early this month.
Lenovo's new supercomputer is a major investment by the Dutch Ministry of Culture and Science, designed to replace SURF's old supercomputer currently deployed in Amsterdam's Science Tower, which is already underperforming. The new supercomputer and will increase floating-point performance by nearly 10 times.
Walter Lioen, manager of computing services for the SURF organization, said the new supercomputers are well suited for applications in the field of machine learning.
Researchers' need for computing power, data storage, and data processing is growing exponentially, Lioen said, adding that it is not designed for the highest ranking in the top 500 fastest supercomputers in the world, "the system must be suitable for all fields of science, from astronomy and research into climate change to medical and social sciences."
In addition to its high performance, the new supercomputers once again reflect Lenovo's experience in supercomputing cluster engineering - energy efficiency.
The new supercomputing system is built with Lenovo's ThinkSystem, using CPU and GPU for joint acceleration and Lenovo's distributed storage solution, with "Poseidon" warm water cooling technology to make the whole system save more than 90% of energy compared to the traditional cooling method. This cluster will not only drive scientific research in the Netherlands but will also be smarter and more efficient.
Lenovo is currently the world's largest supplier of top-tier supercomputers and China's largest supplier of top-tier supercomputers.
As of the latest list released on November 16, 2020, among the 500 supercomputers with the highest floating-point performance in the world, 180 supercomputers made by Lenovo were selected, accounting for 36% of the TOP500 supercomputers, and reigning as the number one high-performance computing provider in the world.
Among the 10 supercomputers with the highest performance in floating-point computing in China, Lenovo has six sets of supercomputers and topped the list with 35 supercomputers.
In the TOP500 list, China continues to be the world's largest deployer of top supercomputers, with 212 of the 500 units deployed in mainland China, a share of more than 42%.
Chinese manufacturers, including Lenovo, took the top three spots in the global supercomputing TOP500 suppliers, with a total of 297 units, accounting for more than 59% of the TOP500 share.
