[News Space=Reporter seungwon lee] South Korea ranked 7th in the number of supercomputers owned by country with a total of 13, and 10th in terms of performance with a total of 213.1 petaflops (PFlops). 

In particular, NHN CLOUD GWANGJU AII (manufactured by Dell technologies Inc.) of NHN Cloud was newly listed in the Top 500. Among the existing listed systems, Kakao's kakaocloud (41st) and SKT's Titan (63rd) rose in the rankings.

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) announced this result at the International Supercomputing Conference (SC24) held from the 18th to the 23rd (local time) at the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) in Atlanta, USA. Supercomputing conferences are held twice a year, once in Germany and once in the US, once in the first half and once in the second half. The TOP500 ranking, which has been held since 1993, is selected and announced based on the number of calculations per second.

On the TOP500 list of supercomputers released on the 19th (local time), 'El Capitan' of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the United States newly entered the list and took first place. El Capitan's actual performance is 1.742 exaflops (EFlops/s), which is capable of 174.2 quadrillion calculations per second.

El Capitan becomes the third exascale computer to take the top spot on this year’s TOP500, following Frontier and Aurora, which took second and third places respectively. Frontier, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States, which had held the top spot for the past three years, fell to second place.

In addition to El Capitan, which ranked first, three new systems entered the TOP10 announced this time. Italy's Eni SpA's 'HPC6' ranked fifth, and LLNL's 'Tuolumne' ranked tenth. With this, LLNL now has two systems in the TOP10.

In terms of performance in the TOP500 rankings, the US took 55.2%, Japan 8.0%, and Italy 7.1%, and these countries accounted for more than 70% of the total performance. In terms of quantity, the US recorded 172 units (34.4%), China 63 units (12.6%), and Germany 41 units (8.2%).

KISTI's national flagship supercomputer No. 5, Nurion, ranked 92nd with a theoretical performance of 25.7 petaflops and a measured performance of 13.9 petaflops.

KISTI aims to complete the introduction process for the 6th supercomputer in 2025 and launch the service in the first half of 2026. Based on the increased budget for the 6th supercomputer project through the Ministry of Strategy and Finance's appropriateness review this year, it recently began disclosing the preliminary specifications.

KISTI is operating an exhibition booth at this year's SC24 to promote its supercomputing services, and held a workshop on the 19th and 20th to announce research and development results in the HPC and quantum fields.

Also, the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (NIAS), Korea Fusion Research Institute (KFE), National Oceanographic Research Institute (KHOA), and Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), all affiliated with the Korea Supercomputing Center Association (KCSA), are participating and exhibiting the research results of each specialized center. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) also participated.

KISTI National Supercomputing Headquarters Director Lee Shik said, “The national supercomputer is a key infrastructure to strengthen our country’s competitiveness amidst global crises and competition,” and “Through the successful introduction of Unit 6, we will promote national development and innovation centered on ultra-high-performance computing services.”