The German system is one of the few innovations that has managed to enter the Top 500 rankings, at a time when it has revealed a slowdown in the pace of performance and development of these types of equipment. The new leader in European supercomputers is named Juwels and the new module developed by Atos is based on his achievement in architecture.

Located at the Jülich Supercomputing Center in Germany, this equipment has entered the Top 500 rankings and has been named the most powerful supercomputing system in Europe (seventh in the world). Thus, he has taken the witness of the former champion of the region HPC5. Developed by Dell and located in the Italian energy company Eni. Its introduction is one of the few innovations brought about by the 56th edition of this classification, which has taken the pulse of the sector in the last 30 years.

"We believe that Juwels is a key milestone on the road to a large-scale computer in Europe (a trillion-capable computer will be able to launch a trillion) by 2023," said Jülic director Thomas Lippertk.

Although the Dammam-7 developed by HPE Cray in Saudi Arabia has also recently entered 10th place, the rest of the list brings few surprises. Japanese Fugaku (Fujitsu) and American Summit and Sierra (IBM) continue to share the podium. And Spain maintains the Marenostrum of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center as the only representative among the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world.

Little news

“The full list shows the fewest new entries since the project began in 1993,” the organization confirms in a note. This record exceeds the minimum mark already achieved in the June edition. “The pandemic could have slowed investment,” argues Agnès Boudot, head of quantum atos at HPC.

The wave of industry calm in the Top 500 distribution is also reflected in the variables that measure the performance of these groups, as growth has also slowed as a result of recent growth. “The list reflects the equality of the profit curve,” the organization affirms in a statement. In the list published in June, the aggregate performance of the equipment fell from 1.65 exaflope (mobile point operations per second) to 2.23 exaflope. With the new classification, this growth rate is interrupted by a total of 2.43 exaflop. However, they underestimate this variable from Atos. “High performance should not drive the supercomputing industry. The most important thing is the effectiveness of these systems.

By country

There is also little change in the distribution by country: China maintains the lead achieved in 2017, with 42.4% of supercomputing systems, the United States concentrates 22% and Japan is in third place with a distant 6.8%.

Compared to this, U.S. teams remain in the lead in terms of their combined potential and Japan is in second place thanks to Fugaku’s contribution. The appearance of Juwels, the new German leader, at the head of the European continent returns to Germany a leadership that is not uncommon for him. The supercomputers of the German country have conquered at least one place in most of the ten most powerful editions in the world in most ranking editions. The equipment, located at the Jülich supercomputing center, was put into operation at the end of last year.