University of Stuttgart and Hewlett Packard Enterprise to Build Exascale Supercomputer
Supercomputers “Hunter” and “Herder” will power cutting-edge academic and industrial research in computational engineering and the applied sciences
In the first stage, a transitional supercomputer, called Hunter, will begin operation in 2025. This will be followed in 2027 with the installation of Herder, an exascale system that will provide a significant expansion of Germany’s high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities. Hunter and Herder will offer researchers world-class infrastructure for simulation, artificial intelligence (AI), and high-performance data analytics (HPDA) to power cutting-edge academic and industrial research in computational engineering and the applied sciences.
The total combined cost for Hunter and Herder is
Hunter to Herder: a two-step climb to exascale
Hunter will replace HLRS’s current flagship supercomputer, Hawk. It is conceived as a stepping stone to enable HLRS’s user community to transition to the massively parallel, GPU-accelerated structure of Herder.
Hunter will be based on the HPE Cray EX4000 supercomputer, which is designed to deliver exascale performance to support large-scale workloads across modeling, simulation, AI, and HPDA. Each of the 136 HPE Cray EX4000 nodes will be equipped with four HPE Slingshot high-performance interconnects. Hunter will also leverage the next generation of Cray ClusterStor, a storage system purpose-engineered to meet the demanding input/output requirements of supercomputers, and the HPE Cray Programming Environment, which offers programmers a comprehensive set of tools for developing, porting, debugging, and tuning applications.
Hunter will raise HLRS’s peak performance to 39 petaFLOPS (39*1015 floating point operations per second), an increase from the 26 petaFLOPS possible with its current supercomputer, Hawk. More importantly, it will transition away from Hawk’s emphasis on CPU processors to make greater use of more energy-efficient GPUs.
Hunter will be based on the AMD Instinct™ MI300A accelerated processing unit (APU), which combines CPU and GPU processors and high-bandwidth memory into a single package. By reducing the physical distance between different types of processors and creating unified memory, the APU enables fast data transfer speeds, impressive HPC performance, easy programmability and great energy efficiency. This will slash the energy required to operate Hunter in comparison to Hawk by approximately
Herder will be designed as an exascale system capable of speeds on the order of one quintillion (1018) FLOPS, a major leap in power that will open exciting new opportunities for key applications run at HLRS. The final configuration, based on accelerator chips, will be determined by the end of 2025.
The combination of CPUs and accelerators in Hunter and Herder will require that current users of HLRS’s supercomputer adapt existing code to run efficiently. For this reason, HPE will collaborate with HLRS to support its user community in adapting software to harness the full performance of the new systems.
Supporting scientific excellence in
HLRS's leap to exascale is part of the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing's national strategy for the continuing development of the three GCS centers: The upcoming JUPITER supercomputer at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre will be designed for maximum performance and will be the first exascale system in
For researchers in
Statements
Mario Brandenburg (Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Ministry for Education and Research, BMBF)
“Funded by the BMBF and the
Petra Olschowski (
“High-performance computing means rapid development. As the peak performance of supercomputers grows, they are as crucial for cutting-edge science as for innovative products and processes in key industrial sectors.
Prof. Dr. Wolfram Ressel (Rector, University of
“With Hunter and Herder, the University of
Anna Steiger (Chancellor, University of
“Supporting cutting-edge science while maximizing energy efficiency is a central concern for everyone at the University of
Prof. Dr. Michael Resch (Director, High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart)
“HPE has been a reliable partner since 2019, and we are excited to be making the jump with them to the next order of magnitude in computing performance, the exaFLOP. Using GPU technology from AMD, we are also confident that we will be well prepared for the challenges of the future.”
Justin Hotard (Executive Vice President and General Manager, HPC, AI & Labs, Hewlett Packard Enterprise)
“HLRS has demonstrated the power of supercomputing in research and applied science, and we are honored to have been with them on this journey. We look forward to building on our collaboration to pave the way to exascale for HLRS using the HPE Cray EX supercomputer. The new system will enable scientific and technological innovation to accelerate economic growth.”
Mario Silveira (Corporate Vice President OEM Sales, AMD)
”AMD is pleased to expand our collaboration with HLRS in
Dr. Bastian Koller (General Manager, HLRS)
“Increasingly it’s not just faster hardware but optimal usage of the system that is the greatest performance factor in simulation and artificial intelligence. We are particularly excited that we have found a globally leading partner for these topics in Hewlett Packard Enterprise, who together with AMD will open up new horizons of performance for our clients.”
About the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart
The High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) was established in 1996 as the first German national high-performance computing center, building on a tradition of supercomputing at the University of
About Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) is the global edge-to-cloud company that helps organizations accelerate outcomes by unlocking value from all of their data, everywhere. Built on decades of reimagining the future and innovating to advance the way people live and work, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions as a service. With offerings spanning Cloud Services, Compute, High Performance Computing & AI, Intelligent Edge, Software, and Storage, HPE provides a consistent experience across all clouds and edges, helping customers develop new business models, engage in new ways, and increase operational performance. For more information, visit: www.hpe.com.
AMD, the AMD logo, AMD Instinct, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
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Media Contacts:
Sophia Honisch, HLRS
honisch@hlrs.de
Patrik Edlund, HPE
patrik.edlund@hpe.com
Source: Hewlett Packard Enterprise