15th January 2025 New supercomputer is world's fastest El Capitan, achieving an unprecedented 1.7 exaFLOPS, has been officially dedicated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Three years ago, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee unveiled Frontier, the world's first exascale supercomputer – defined as a machine capable of performing more than one quintillion calculations per second. Last year, the Aurora system at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility in Illinois became the second exascale system, marking another milestone in high-performance computing, albeit without surpassing Frontier. Now, a third exascale system has been deployed, this time at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. El Capitan overtakes Frontier to claim the title of world's fastest supercomputer, reaching an incredible 1.7 exaFLOPS of sustained performance and a "peak" speed of 2.7 exaFLOPS. El Capitan, which took five years to develop and deploy, is approximately 30% faster than Frontier and over 20 times faster than the LLNL's previous most powerful supercomputer, Sierra. It will primarily be used to model nuclear weapons with an unprecedented level of detail and accuracy. These simulations will ensure the U.S. can maintain its deterrence capabilities without the need for actual, physical testing. The vast power of El Capitan will extend beyond national security, with applications in many other areas – including astrophysics, climate science, drug discovery, earthquake simulations, fusion energy, materials science, and more.
"This state-of-the-art system marks a monumental leap forward in high-performance computing, enabling unprecedented modelling and simulation capability," says the LLNL. "Complex, high-resolution 3D simulations that would take weeks or months on Sierra will be done in just hours or days on El Capitan, leading to previously unimaginable insights." The 100% fanless, direct liquid-cooled system – with a total power consumption of 30 MW – also ranks as one of the top 20 most energy efficient supercomputers on the Green500 list. "El Capitan marks another significant milestone in exascale supercomputing, bringing monumental performance, energy efficiency, and the capabilities to accelerate AI-driven scientific discovery and make incredible breakthroughs to strengthen national security and unlock new opportunities in renewable energy," said Trish Damkroger, Senior Vice President for HPC & AI at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, who attended the dedication ceremony last Thursday. "This tremendous accomplishment, years in the making and the result of tireless efforts by hundreds of dedicated employees in this large collaborative team, is a testament to the Laboratory's leadership in driving scientific discovery. It continues a legacy of supercomputing excellence that spans more than 70 years," said LLNL Director Kim Budil. "El Capitan's extraordinary computing capabilities will allow us to tackle complex challenges that were previously out of reach. We are proud to lead this achievement in partnership with industry, and advance science in ways that will benefit society and the nation as a whole."
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