Intel’s Most Powerful Super Computer is Coming Online

Computing power has come a very long way over the past few decades, and its development is moving as fast now as ever. Intel’s new supercomputer is the latest advancement, and one of the most impressive feats in the history of computing.

Argonne National Laboratory recently finished building its most powerful supercomputer yet. The federally-funded research center based out of Lamont, Illinois, partnered with creators Intel, HPE, and the Department of Energy to create an incredibly powerful supercomputer. They hope to have it online as soon as the end of this year.

What is Intel’s New Aurora Supercomputer?

Argonne National Laboratory is calling its new supercomputer Aurora. The lab says that it’s a machine that will be theoretically capable of delivering more than two exaflops of computing power. To put that into perspective, that means it will be able to complete more than 2 billion billion calculations per second. Yes, you read that correctly.

The performance is better than anything on the market today by a huge margin. It’s achieved by linking thousands of powerful chips together. With quantum computing on the horizon, experts are saying this has the potential to be a one-of-a-kind supercomputer that can help pave the way for the quantum applications of tomorrow.

What Does the Aurora Supercomputer Actually Consist of?

The Aurora Supercomputer is made up of 10,624 70-pound rectangular blades. These blades are housed in 166 separate racks, with each rack getting 64 blades. All of this is spread out across eight rows, which take up the same space as about two professional basketball courts.

Every blade has two Intel Xeon Max Series CPUs, six Intel Max Series GPUs, and various memory, networking, and cooling technologies. The machine also has 63,744 Intel Data Center GPU Max Series ‘Ponte Vecchio’ and 21,248 ‘Sapphire Rapids’ processors.

Why Did Intel Create Aurora?

So with all that being said, you may be wondering what the point is. Why is Intel bothering with this? The hope is that such a powerful supercomputer will be able to help scientists gain new insights into some of the world’s toughest problems.

For example, issues like climate change involve analyzing massive data sets and looking for connections across years and years of granular information. Supercomputers like Aurora will be able to analyze this kind of information faster and more effectively than existing models.

Lab directors also say that Aurora will be used to train open-source generative AI models for science. Given that this promises to be one of, if not the most advanced machines in existence, it should help us create and study more powerful artificial intelligence models to push the boundaries of the technology.

What Can We Expect Next?

Scientists who have access to Aurora can begin using it to solve various problems. A computer of this magnitude could have a wide range of applications, especially for research purposes.

Aurora gives researchers more power to answer some of the toughest questions we face about the future. And since it will likely be used to advance AI, it could have a major impact in the near future.

Scientists and innovators who push the cutting edge of technology further and further along need advanced tools. For example, NASA’s research helped to create the internet.

This supercomputer could be an important resource for the development of various new technologies. And although it’s not the first and certainly won’t be the last supercomputer to be created, it could be a pivotal step in the evolution of modern society—particularly as we enter the age of AI and automation.