Karolina has succeeded, twice, in the TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world

On Monday afternoon, the eyes of all supercomputer fans were literally glued to the announcement of the results of the TOP500 list, which determines the ranking of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. The TOP500 list has been announced since 1993, twice a year – in late June at the ISC International Conference in Germany and in November at the Supercomputing Conference in the USA. Especially tense moments were experienced this year at IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center in Ostrava, which has sent the Karolina supercomputer to the competition.

With its accelerated part designed, for example, for artificial intelligence computations with theoretical peak performance of 6.048 PFlop/s, Karolina has ranked 69^th. Designed for more general types of computations, the non-accelerated part of Karolina with 2.837 PFlop/s has ranked 149^th. Karolina will find its area of application in, for example, the material and drug design, climate change research, and digital twin simulations. For industrial companies, it will bring unique technologies and opportunities for innovation that can save them significant amounts of money.

"During the announcement of this year's TOP500 list we witnessed a rather rare moment, with not only our Karolina but also several other supercomputers having been ranked twice. This is due to the fact that the launch of the performance tests is done separately on the accelerated and non-accelerated parts. However, if we had combined the two tests, we would have probably ended up in the top 50," said Vít Vondrák, the Managing Director of IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center. "I am happy about Karolina's position in the TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. It has become a more powerful supercomputer than, for example, Pleiades, which belongs to the NASA. However, for our users, the ranking is not so important. Karolina will bring them state-of-the-art technology with a peak theoretical performance of 15.2 PFlop/s," adds Vondrák.

“Karolina’s excellent placement on the TOP500 supercomputers ranking confirms that the EuroHPC JU is working at full throttle. As the 19^th most powerful supercomputer in the European Union, Karolina is leading the way in European HPC technology,” adds Anders Jensen, Executive Director of EuroHPC JU which is involved in the acquisition of the Karolina supercomputer.

Acceptance tests of the Karolina supercomputer are currently underway in the data hall of the supercomputing centre in Ostrava and will be completed by the end of June, after which the first users will try it out in a test run.

Karolina is not the first Czech supercomputer ever to be ranked in the TOP500. In 2015, the Ostrava Salomon supercomputer with its 2 PFlop/s theoretical peak performance ranked 40^th. However, after six years there is no more space left for it in the ranking. Just as all electronics become obsolete, so do supercomputers. Salomon is therefore counting its last jobs in the IT4Innovations data hall, and its operation are to be ceased this year. 

For more about the TOP500, see HERE

For more information about the Karolina supercomputer, see HERE

The procurement of the EuroHPC supercomputer is funded by the OP RDE project entitled IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center – Path to exascale, project ID: CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001791. The procurement and operation of the EuroHPC supercomputer is jointly funded by EuroHPC JU, through the European Union Connecting Europe Facility and the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, as well as the Czech Republic.