• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

China Pulls Ahead of U.S. in Latest TOP500 List

Raevenlord

News Editor
Joined
Aug 12, 2016
Messages
3,755 (1.23/day)
Location
Portugal
System Name The Ryzening
Processor AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
Motherboard MSI X570 MAG TOMAHAWK
Cooling Lian Li Galahad 360mm AIO
Memory 32 GB G.Skill Trident Z F4-3733 (4x 8 GB)
Video Card(s) Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti
Storage Boot: Transcend MTE220S 2TB, Kintson A2000 1TB, Seagate Firewolf Pro 14 TB
Display(s) Acer Nitro VG270UP (1440p 144 Hz IPS)
Case Lian Li O11DX Dynamic White
Audio Device(s) iFi Audio Zen DAC
Power Supply Seasonic Focus+ 750 W
Mouse Cooler Master Masterkeys Lite L
Keyboard Cooler Master Masterkeys Lite L
Software Windows 10 x64
The fiftieth TOP500 list of the fastest supercomputers in the world has China overtaking the US in the total number of ranked systems by a margin of 202 to 143. It is the largest number of supercomputers China has ever claimed on the TOP500 ranking, with the US presence shrinking to its lowest level since the list's inception 25 years ago.

Just six months ago, the US led with 169 systems, with China coming in at 160. Despite the reversal of fortunes, the 143 systems claimed by the US gives them a solid second place finish, with Japan in third place with 35, followed by Germany with 20, France with 18, and the UK with 15.





China has also overtaken the US in aggregate performance as well. The Asian superpower now claims 35.4 percent of the TOP500 flops, with the US in second place with 29.6 percent.

The top 10 systems remain largely unchanged since the June 2017 list, with a couple of notable exceptions.

Sunway TaihuLight, a system developed by China's National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology (NRCPC), and installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, maintains its number one ranking for the fourth time, with a High Performance Linpack (HPL) mark of 93.01 petaflops.



Tianhe-2 (Milky Way-2), a system developed by China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) and deployed at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzho, China, is still the number two system at 33.86 petaflops.



Piz Daint, a Cray XC50 system installed at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Lugano, Switzerland, maintains its number three position with 19.59 petaflops, reaffirming its status as the most powerful supercomputer in Europe. Piz Daint was upgraded last year with NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs, which more than doubled its HPL performance of 9.77 petaflops.



The new number four system is the upgraded Gyoukou supercomputer, a ZettaScaler-2.2 system deployed at Japan's Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, which was the home of the Earth Simulator. Gyoukou was able to achieve an HPL result of 19.14 petaflops. using PEZY-SC2 accelerators, along with conventional Intel Xeon processors. The system's 19,860,000 cores represent the highest level of concurrency ever recorded on the TOP500 rankings of supercomputers.

Titan, a five-year-old Cray XK7 system installed at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and still the largest system in the US, slips down to number five. Its 17.59 petaflops are mainly the result of its NVIDIA K20x GPU accelerators.



Sequoia, an IBM BlueGene/Q system installed at DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is the number six system on the list with a mark of 17.17 petaflops. It was deployed in 2011.

The new number seven system is Trinity, a Cray XC40 supercomputer operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. It was recently upgraded with Intel "Knights Landing" Xeon Phi processors, which propelled it from 8.10 petaflops six months ago to its current high-water mark of 14.14 petaflops.

Cori, a Cray XC40 supercomputer, installed at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), is now the eighth fastest supercomputer in the world. Its 1,630 Intel Xeon "Haswell" processor nodes and 9,300 Intel Xeon Phi 7250 nodes yielded an HPL result of 14.01 petaflops.

At 13.55 petaflops, Oakforest-PACS, a Fujitsu PRIMERGY CX1640 M1 installed at Joint Center for Advanced High Performance Computing in Japan, is the number nine system. It too is powered by Intel "Knights Landing" Xeon Phi processors.

Fujitsu's K computer installed at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe, Japan, is now the number 10 system at 10.51 petaflops. Its performance is derived from its 88 thousand SPARC64 processor cores linked by Fujitsu's Tofu interconnect. Despite its tenth-place showing on HPL, the K Computer is the top-ranked system on the High-Performance Conjugate Gradients (HPCG) benchmark.

For the first time, each of the top 10 supercomputers delivered more than 10 petaflops on HPL. There are also 181 systems with performance greater than a petaflop - up from 138 on the June 2017 list. Taking a broader look, the combined performance of all 500 systems has grown to 845 petaflops, compared to 749 petaflops six months ago and 672 petaflops one year ago. Even though aggregate performance grew by nearly 100 petaflops, the relative increase is well below the list's long-term historical trend.

A further reflection of this slowdown is the list turnover. The entry point in the latest rankings moved up to 548 teraflops, compared to 432 teraflops in June. The 548-teraflop system was in position 370 in the previous TOP500 list. The turnover is in line with what has been observed over the last four years, but is much lower than previous levels.

A total of 102 systems employ accelerator/coprocessor technology, compared to 91 six months ago. 86 of these use NVIDIA GPUs, 12 systems make use Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor technology, and 5 are using PEZY Computing accelerators. Two systems use a combination of NVIDIA GPU and Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors. An additional 14 systems now use Xeon Phi chips as the main processing unit.

Green500 Highlights

Turning to the new Green500 rankings, the top three positions are taken by newly installed systems in Japan, all of which are based on the ZettaScaler-2.2 architecture and the PEZY-SC2 accelerator. The SC2 is a second-generation 2048-core chip that provides a peak performance of 8.192 teraflops in single-precision.

The most efficient of these ZettaScaler supercomputers is the Shoubu system B installed at RIKEN's Advanced Center for Computing and Communication. It achieved a power efficiency of 17.0 gigaflops/watt.



The number two Green500 system is the Suiren2 cluster at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization/KEK, which managed to reach 16.8 gigaflops/watt.

The number three Green500 slot was captured by the PEZY Computing's own Sakura system. It achieved 14.2 gigaflops/watt. All of these top three systems are positioned in the bottom half of the TOP500 rankings: Shoubu system B at position 258, Suiren2 at 306, and Sakura at 275.

The fourth greenest supercomputer is a DGX SaturnV Volta system, which is installed at NVIDIA headquarters in San Jose, California. It achieved 15.1 gigaflops/watt, and comes in at number 149 on the TOP500 list. The number five system is Gyoukou, yet another ZettaScaler-2.2 machine. It achieved an efficiency of 14.2 gigaflops/watt and it currently ranks as the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world.



Vendor trends

A total of 471 systems, representing 94.2 percent of the total, are now using Intel processors, which is slightly up from 92.8 percent six months ago. The share of IBM Power processors is at 14 systems, down from 21 systems in June.

The number of systems using Gigabit Ethernet is unchanged at 228 systems, in large part thanks to 204 systems now using 10G Ethernet. InfiniBand technology is found in 163 systems, down from 178 systems in the previous list, and remains the second most-used system interconnect technology in the list. Intel Omni-Path technology is now in 35 systems, down from 38 six month ago.

HPE has the lead in the number of installed supercomputers at 122, which represents nearly a quarter of all TOP500 systems. This includes several systems originally installed by SGI, which is now owned by HPE. HPE accounted for 144 systems six months ago.

Lenovo follows HPE with 81 systems down from 88 systems on the June list. Inspur rose further in the ranks and has now 56 systems, up from only 20 six month ago. Cray now has 53 systems, down from 57 systems six month ago. Sugon features 51 systems in the list, up from 44 in June. IBM follows with only 19 systems remaining under their label. These are mostly BlueGene/Q supercomputers, reflecting an aging install base. The average age of IBM systems on the list is now five years.

Cray continues to be the clear performance leader, claiming 19.5 percent of the list's aggregate performance. HPE is second with 15.2 percent of the TOP500 flops. Thanks to the number one Sunway TaihuLight system, NRCPC retains the third spot with 11.1 percent of the total performance. Lenovo is fourth with 9.1 percent of performance, followed by Inspur at 6.3 percent, IBM at 6.1 percent and Sugon at 5.2 percent. All top vendors, with the exception of Inspur and Sugon, lost performance share compared to six months ago.

HPCG Results

The TOP500 list is now incorporating the High-Performance Conjugate Gradient (HPCG) benchmark results into the list to provide a more balanced look at system performance. The benchmark incorporates calculations in sparse matrix multiplication, global collectives, and vector updates, which more closely represents the mix of computational and data access patterns used in many supercomputing codes.

As previously mentioned, the fastest system using the HPCG benchmark remains Fujitsu's K computer, which is ranked number 10 in the overall TOP500 rankings. It achieved 602.7 teraflops on HPCG, followed closely by Tianhe-2 with a score of 580.0 teraflops. The upgraded Trinity supercomputer comes in at number three at 546.1 teraflops, followed by Piz Daint at number four with 486.4 teraflops, and Sunway TaihuLight at number five at 480.8 teraflops.

The International Space Station computer, built by HPE, is now listed in the HPCG results, making it the "highest" computer on the list.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Joined
Sep 7, 2017
Messages
3,244 (1.22/day)
System Name Grunt
Processor Ryzen 5800x
Motherboard Gigabyte x570 Gaming X
Cooling Noctua NH-U12A
Memory Corsair LPX 3600 4x8GB
Video Card(s) Gigabyte 6800 XT (reference)
Storage Samsung 980 Pro 2TB
Display(s) Samsung CFG70, Samsung NU8000 TV
Case Corsair C70
Power Supply Corsair HX750
Software Win 10 Pro
Most of it is made in Taiwan anyways :p

And I can't tell if that's actually a win for China or the US... and neither do they probably.
 
Joined
Jul 16, 2014
Messages
8,219 (2.16/day)
Location
SE Michigan
System Name Dumbass
Processor AMD Ryzen 7800X3D
Motherboard ASUS TUF gaming B650
Cooling Artic Liquid Freezer 2 - 420mm
Memory G.Skill Sniper 32gb DDR5 6000
Video Card(s) GreenTeam 4070 ti super 16gb
Storage Samsung EVO 500gb & 1Tb, 2tb HDD, 500gb WD Black
Display(s) 1x Nixeus NX_EDG27, 2x Dell S2440L (16:9)
Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo w/8 140mm SP Fans
Audio Device(s) onboard (realtek?) - SPKRS:Logitech Z623 200w 2.1
Power Supply Corsair HX1000i
Mouse Steeseries Esports Wireless
Keyboard Corsair K100
Software windows 10 H
Benchmark Scores https://i.imgur.com/aoz3vWY.jpg?2
Thanks interesting read.
 

bug

Joined
May 22, 2015
Messages
13,842 (3.95/day)
Processor Intel i5-12600k
Motherboard Asus H670 TUF
Cooling Arctic Freezer 34
Memory 2x16GB DDR4 3600 G.Skill Ripjaws V
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 1060 SC
Storage 500GB Samsung 970 EVO, 500GB Samsung 850 EVO, 1TB Crucial MX300 and 2TB Crucial MX500
Display(s) Dell U3219Q + HP ZR24w
Case Raijintek Thetis
Audio Device(s) Audioquest Dragonfly Red :D
Power Supply Seasonic 620W M12
Mouse Logitech G502 Proteus Core
Keyboard G.Skill KM780R
Software Arch Linux + Win10
It doesn't matter how big it is, it matters what you do with it :D

On a more serious note, China also has the largest radiotelescope in the world, but apparently of the handful of people capable of running it, no one is willing to move to China to do it.
Still, it's interesting to see where things are headed.
 
Joined
Sep 7, 2017
Messages
3,244 (1.22/day)
System Name Grunt
Processor Ryzen 5800x
Motherboard Gigabyte x570 Gaming X
Cooling Noctua NH-U12A
Memory Corsair LPX 3600 4x8GB
Video Card(s) Gigabyte 6800 XT (reference)
Storage Samsung 980 Pro 2TB
Display(s) Samsung CFG70, Samsung NU8000 TV
Case Corsair C70
Power Supply Corsair HX750
Software Win 10 Pro
It doesn't matter how big it is, it matters what you do with it :D

On a more serious note, China also has the largest radiotelescope in the world, but apparently of the handful of people capable of running it, no one is willing to move to China to do it.
Still, it's interesting to see where things are headed.

Considering the average mentality there, I wonder how well they take care of these particular things. Because they let a lot of their buildings go to waste (or rather, they just tear them down and build new ones). Even normal people don't even take care of little things, like their cars and bikes. I'm sure it's all better in computers and sciences, but I wonder just how much.
 

bug

Joined
May 22, 2015
Messages
13,842 (3.95/day)
Processor Intel i5-12600k
Motherboard Asus H670 TUF
Cooling Arctic Freezer 34
Memory 2x16GB DDR4 3600 G.Skill Ripjaws V
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 1060 SC
Storage 500GB Samsung 970 EVO, 500GB Samsung 850 EVO, 1TB Crucial MX300 and 2TB Crucial MX500
Display(s) Dell U3219Q + HP ZR24w
Case Raijintek Thetis
Audio Device(s) Audioquest Dragonfly Red :D
Power Supply Seasonic 620W M12
Mouse Logitech G502 Proteus Core
Keyboard G.Skill KM780R
Software Arch Linux + Win10
Considering the average mentality there, I wonder how well they take care of these particular things. Because they let a lot of their buildings go to waste (or rather, they just tear them down and build new ones). Even normal people don't even take care of little things, like their cars and bikes. I'm sure it's all better in computers and sciences, but I wonder just how much.
Who cares? It's their stuff. Though if we're talking about building and demolishing, that can't be good for their health.
But yes, it is a different world. I haven't seen/experienced it myself, but I know people that have.
 

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
26,259 (4.44/day)
Location
IA, USA
System Name BY-2021
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (65w eco profile)
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling Scythe Mugen (rev 5)
Memory 2 x Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 32 GiB
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Storage Samsung 980 Pro, Seagate Exos X20 TB 7200 RPM
Display(s) Nixeus NX-EDG274K (3840x2160@144 DP) + Samsung SyncMaster 906BW (1440x900@60 HDMI-DVI)
Case Coolermaster HAF 932 w/ USB 3.0 5.25" bay + USB 3.2 (A+C) 3.5" bay
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1150, Micca OriGen+
Power Supply Enermax Platimax 850w
Mouse Nixeus REVEL-X
Keyboard Tesoro Excalibur
Software Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Faster than the tortoise; slower than the hare.
Top500 isn't really a good metric going forward anymore. USA has a lot of quantum and neural network processors that can solve a lot more complex problems than super computer clusters can but they suck at brute force FLOPS.
 
Joined
Sep 15, 2011
Messages
6,760 (1.39/day)
Processor Intel® Core™ i7-13700K
Motherboard Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX
Cooling Noctua NH-D15
Memory 32GB(2x16) DDR5@6600MHz G-Skill Trident Z5
Video Card(s) ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3080 AMP Holo
Storage 2TB SK Platinum P41 SSD + 4TB SanDisk Ultra SSD + 500GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD
Display(s) Acer Predator X34 3440x1440@100Hz G-Sync
Case NZXT PHANTOM410-BK
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi Titanium PCIe
Power Supply Corsair 850W
Mouse Logitech Hero G502 SE
Software Windows 11 Pro - 64bit
Benchmark Scores 30FPS in NFS:Rivals
I have read some interviews a long time ago, that in order for an A.I. to become self aware, an equivalent performance of 100 Zetta flops is needed, so we are still looong way until there. Probably 100 more years? ;)
 
Joined
Jan 8, 2017
Messages
9,503 (3.27/day)
System Name Good enough
Processor AMD Ryzen R9 7900 - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora Edge
Motherboard ASRock B650 Pro RS
Cooling 2x 360mm NexXxoS ST30 X-Flow, 1x 360mm NexXxoS ST30, 1x 240mm NexXxoS ST30
Memory 32GB - FURY Beast RGB 5600 Mhz
Video Card(s) Sapphire RX 7900 XT - Alphacool Eisblock Aurora
Storage 1x Kingston KC3000 1TB 1x Kingston A2000 1TB, 1x Samsung 850 EVO 250GB , 1x Samsung 860 EVO 500GB
Display(s) LG UltraGear 32GN650-B + 4K Samsung TV
Case Phanteks NV7
Power Supply GPS-750C
USA has a lot of quantum and neural network processors that can solve a lot more complex problems than super computer clusters can but they suck at brute force FLOPS.

Last time I checked quantum processors were still nowhere near as fast or robust as traditional computing but maybe I am wrong. In addition to that their practicality is still under a big question mark.

I have read some interviews a long time ago, that in order for an A.I. to become self aware

No one has a damn clue how to even quantify self awareness/consciousnesses , let alone make a prediction on how much computing power it would take. Hell , it might be that it's something completely independent from that.
 

bug

Joined
May 22, 2015
Messages
13,842 (3.95/day)
Processor Intel i5-12600k
Motherboard Asus H670 TUF
Cooling Arctic Freezer 34
Memory 2x16GB DDR4 3600 G.Skill Ripjaws V
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 1060 SC
Storage 500GB Samsung 970 EVO, 500GB Samsung 850 EVO, 1TB Crucial MX300 and 2TB Crucial MX500
Display(s) Dell U3219Q + HP ZR24w
Case Raijintek Thetis
Audio Device(s) Audioquest Dragonfly Red :D
Power Supply Seasonic 620W M12
Mouse Logitech G502 Proteus Core
Keyboard G.Skill KM780R
Software Arch Linux + Win10
I have read some interviews a long time ago, that in order for an A.I. to become self aware, an equivalent performance of 100 Zetta flops is needed, so we are still looong way until there. Probably 100 more years? ;)
Neah, that's not how it works. You only need enough to make an AI that can make a better version of itself. Then it can take it from there ;)
It also matters a lot how you define AI. Will a simple neural network fit the description? Something that passes the Turing test? Does it need to know everything from the start? Does it need to actively learn?
 

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
26,259 (4.44/day)
Location
IA, USA
System Name BY-2021
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (65w eco profile)
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling Scythe Mugen (rev 5)
Memory 2 x Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 32 GiB
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Storage Samsung 980 Pro, Seagate Exos X20 TB 7200 RPM
Display(s) Nixeus NX-EDG274K (3840x2160@144 DP) + Samsung SyncMaster 906BW (1440x900@60 HDMI-DVI)
Case Coolermaster HAF 932 w/ USB 3.0 5.25" bay + USB 3.2 (A+C) 3.5" bay
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1150, Micca OriGen+
Power Supply Enermax Platimax 850w
Mouse Nixeus REVEL-X
Keyboard Tesoro Excalibur
Software Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Faster than the tortoise; slower than the hare.
Last time I checked quantum processors were still nowhere near as fast or robust as traditional computing but maybe I am wrong. In addition to that their practicality is still under a question mark.
They're far better for solving specific types of problems.

Does it need to actively learn?
This. And Google already made one.
 
Joined
Jan 8, 2017
Messages
9,503 (3.27/day)
System Name Good enough
Processor AMD Ryzen R9 7900 - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora Edge
Motherboard ASRock B650 Pro RS
Cooling 2x 360mm NexXxoS ST30 X-Flow, 1x 360mm NexXxoS ST30, 1x 240mm NexXxoS ST30
Memory 32GB - FURY Beast RGB 5600 Mhz
Video Card(s) Sapphire RX 7900 XT - Alphacool Eisblock Aurora
Storage 1x Kingston KC3000 1TB 1x Kingston A2000 1TB, 1x Samsung 850 EVO 250GB , 1x Samsung 860 EVO 500GB
Display(s) LG UltraGear 32GN650-B + 4K Samsung TV
Case Phanteks NV7
Power Supply GPS-750C
They're far better for solving specific types of problems.

Exactly my point , limited robustness. I have no doubt they will find their usefulness in some areas but as to surpass or at the very least become comparable in all aspects to traditional computing , I have my doubts.
 

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
26,259 (4.44/day)
Location
IA, USA
System Name BY-2021
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (65w eco profile)
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling Scythe Mugen (rev 5)
Memory 2 x Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 32 GiB
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Storage Samsung 980 Pro, Seagate Exos X20 TB 7200 RPM
Display(s) Nixeus NX-EDG274K (3840x2160@144 DP) + Samsung SyncMaster 906BW (1440x900@60 HDMI-DVI)
Case Coolermaster HAF 932 w/ USB 3.0 5.25" bay + USB 3.2 (A+C) 3.5" bay
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1150, Micca OriGen+
Power Supply Enermax Platimax 850w
Mouse Nixeus REVEL-X
Keyboard Tesoro Excalibur
Software Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Faster than the tortoise; slower than the hare.
These TOP500 supercomputer clusters would take years to solve problems the quantum processors can solve in hours. FLOPS are floating-point calculations. Quantum are deep-branching logic. The former is good for physics calculations, the latter is good for finding viable routes through complex datasets.
 
Joined
Mar 16, 2017
Messages
245 (0.09/day)
Location
behind you
Processor Threadripper 1950X
Motherboard ASRock X399 Professional Gaming
Cooling IceGiant ProSiphon Elite
Memory 48GB DDR4 2934MHz
Video Card(s) MSI GTX 1080
Storage 4TB Crucial P3 Plus NVMe, 1TB Samsung 980 NVMe, 1TB Inland NVMe, 2TB Western Digital HDD
Display(s) 2x 4K60
Power Supply Cooler Master Silent Pro M (1000W)
Mouse Corsair Ironclaw Wireless
Keyboard Corsair K70 MK.2
VR HMD HTC Vive Pro
Software Windows 10, QubesOS
No one has a damn clue how to even quantify self awareness/consciousnesses , let alone make a prediction on how much computing power it would take. Hell , it might be that it's something completely independent from that.

Indeed, they don't call it the hard problem for nothing. It's one of the only questions we don't even know how to ask.
 
Joined
Sep 7, 2017
Messages
3,244 (1.22/day)
System Name Grunt
Processor Ryzen 5800x
Motherboard Gigabyte x570 Gaming X
Cooling Noctua NH-U12A
Memory Corsair LPX 3600 4x8GB
Video Card(s) Gigabyte 6800 XT (reference)
Storage Samsung 980 Pro 2TB
Display(s) Samsung CFG70, Samsung NU8000 TV
Case Corsair C70
Power Supply Corsair HX750
Software Win 10 Pro
Who cares? It's their stuff. Though if we're talking about building and demolishing, that can't be good for their health.
But yes, it is a different world. I haven't seen/experienced it myself, but I know people that have.

It's not that I care. I'm just making an observation. I wonder if the tech world over there fares any better. I honestly don't know.
 
Top