This photo, taken on Sept. 5, 2024, shows a supercomputer set up at the agricultural science super computing center of the Rural Department Administration in Jeonju, 192 kilometers south of Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, May 14 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will introduce a new supercomputer from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) under a contract that includes five years of maintenance and repair services, the science ministry said Wednesday.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) signed a 382.5 billion-won (US$270 million) deal with HPE to install the supercomputer by the first half of 2026, the Ministry of Science and ICT said in a press release. It will be the country’s sixth state supercomputer.
“In rapidly changing research and industrial environments, the new supercomputer will offer ultra high-performance computing services to sectors requiring large-scale, high-precision scientific and engineering calculations,” the ministry said.
Such computing power is also essential for artificial intelligence (AI)-related research projects, it added.
The sixth state-designated supercomputer will be equipped with 8,496 graphic processing units (GPUs) produced by U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Corp., delivering a performance capacity of 600 petaflops (PF), according to the ministry.
One petaflop (PF) refers to the ability to perform 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
The new system will replace the fifth state supercomputer, Nurion, currently in operation. South Korea had purchased its first, second and fifth state supercomputers from HPE.
In addition to its state supercomputer, South Korea had 12 other supercomputers at agencies and private companies, such as Naver Corp., the nation’s largest online portal, and leading mobile carrier SK Telecom Co, as of November 2024.
South Korea ranked eighth globally in terms of the number of supercomputers, trailing behind the United States with 172, China at 62, Germany 41 and Japan 34.
Texas-based HPE and multinational tech firm Lenovo had competed in a public bidding process to supply South Korea’s sixth state supercomputer.
HPE, known for its extensive experience in building large-scale computing systems, had 106 systems on the Top 500 supercomputer list as of November.
The world’s top-ranked supercomputer, El Capitan (2.7 exaflops), second-ranked Frontier (2.0 exaflops) and fifth-ranked HPC6 (607 petaflops) were also developed by the U.S. tech company.
One exaflop (EF) is 1,000 times faster than 1 petaflop in terms of computational speed.
(Yonhap)
