10 supercomputers that are leading innovation around the world

By Conner Forrest From TechRepublic

Tianhe-2
In July 2015 the Top 500 list of the most powerful supercomputers was released. Here are the top 10.

The current no. 1 system is the Tianhe-2, which is part of the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzho, China. The system has 16,000 nodes and more than three million computing cores.

Image: Jack Dongarra

Titan
The Titan resides at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Titan is a Cray XK7 system and is highly energy efficient. It is an upgrade of the Jaguar supercomputer.

Image: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Sequoia
IBM Sequoia is one of the IBM BlueGene supercomputers. The first computer to sustain 10 petaflops of performance, it lives at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Image: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)

K Computer
The RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Japan is home to no. 4 on the list, Fujitsu’s K Computer. The computer uses a proprietary interconnect called Tofu, and its OS is based on the Linux kernel.

Image: RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science

Mira
Mira, another IBM BlueGene supercomputer, is installed at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The computer was supported, in part, by the United States Department of Energy.

Image: Argonne National Laboratory

Piz Daint
The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Switzerland is home to Piz Daint, the most powerful computer system in Europe. Piz Daint is a Cray XC30 and is one of the most energy efficient supercomputers, consuming a mere 2.33 MW of power.

Image: CSCS

Shaheen II
Shaheen II, a product of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, was put to work in 2015. The original Shaheen system was an IBM BlueGene system, but the Shaheen II is a Cray XC40 system.

Image: KAUST Supercomputing Laboratory

Stampede
Leave it to the University of Texas, Austin Longhorns to name a supercomputer Stampede. It’s a Dell PowerEdge C8220 system working out of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the university.

Image: TACC

JUQUEEN
Another IBM BlueGene machine, the JUQUEEN, is installed in Germany.

Image: Julich

Vulcan
Taking its namesake from Mr. Spock’s home planet, the Vulcan supercomputer system is also out of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It is used to operate in tandem with its roommate, Sequoia.

Image: Laura Schulz and Meg Epperly/LLNL

About Conner Forrest
Conner Forrest is a Staff Writer for TechRepublic. He covers startups and enterprise technology and is passionate about the convergence of tech and culture.

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