Frontier Supercomputer by Justin Whitt, Oakridge Leadership Computing Facility Program and OLCF-5 Project Director

It was a day of pride for Oak Ridge National Laboratory as it celebrated the successful completion of a project based on an idea (exascale computing) that began more than 20 years ago.

This is the official announcement of Frontier, the first domestic and world supercomputer capable of performing 1 billion calculations per second. The event will include a number of private and public sectors, including AMD CEO Lisa Su (whose AMD CPUs and GPUs power the new system) and Frontier’s prime contractor, his HPE CEO Antonionelli. The technology of his player list has been assembled.

Before the event, I had the opportunity to speak briefly with Su. Su is often seen on cable business channels teasing Wall Street reporters about AMD in the broader server and her PC markets. So when she told us that she “personally” successfully installed Frontier and unveiled Wednesday, we were impressed.

“We are … a company with 25,000 employees. Personally speaking, no project or company has been more important than the Frontier offering,” she said. “It was a commitment both on a professional level, on a personal level, and indeed on a national level. It was suffocating.”

AMD CEO Lisa Su Attends Frontier Supercomputer Unveiling Ceremony

She also highlighted the breadth and depth of inter-organizational and cross-departmental collaboration required to deliver Frontier.

“I want to give a big congratulations to everyone involved in this project. I really enjoyed being with them (in the room where the Frontier is). , ORNL director), I can assure you that Antonio and I have sweated a few bullets,” she said. This is a really big leap for science, for our country, and for industry.”

Neri himself says Frontier can be added to HPE’s list of “firsts”, including the first oscilloscope, the first technology company to provide mission-critical computing, and the first technology company to put a commercial server in outer space. says. He also emphasized Frontier’s energy efficiency.

HPE CEO Antonio Neri

“And for us, this is another very important achievement…” he said. “The lab is now home to Frontier, which is by far the fastest supercomputer and, most importantly, the greenest. Because … this level of computing power with less energy is absolutely because it is necessary.”

Neri also takes his hat off to AMD.

“I would also like to thank our partner Lisa. We made a bet and took a risk. Neri said. “As an engineer, I am always thinking about how to keep our competitors’ eyes on the taillights all the time. Most importantly, help deliver results on these big societal challenges that we all face.”

He also provided comments demonstrating HPE’s continued commitment to leadership in the supercomputer segment.

Plumbing — Frontier Water Cooling

“Today is just the beginning of our journey, and it’s an exciting journey ahead of us, so what’s next is probably even more exciting,” he said. We are working on a breakthrough in technology and are really proud to be deploying it again in this lab.”

Some of the funniest comments from the event came from DOE Deputy Director David Turk. He has spent hours, months and years working on this particular project for Frontier in particular, but more generally in this supercomputing space, confirming that the US is a leader and is a leader. It continues to be and will continue to be a leader for years to come. ”

Frontier — cabling wiring

He said, “Not everything in life is a competition…but it’s nice to be number one.”

“It’s also incredible to take a step back and realize how far ahead Frontier is now,” Turk said, noting that the system is the world’s No. 2 system and the world’s No. 2 most powerful super Ranks 2-8 on the TOP500 list for computers.

The event was hosted by the soon-to-be-retired director of Oakridge, Zachariah. The event was also attended by Johnny Moore, her manager at Oak’s Ridge Site Her Office. Barb Helland, DOE Associate Director. DOE Director of Science, Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe. Frank Rose, Chief Deputy Director of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Rep. Chuck Fleischman (R-Tennessee); Tennessee Lieutenant Randy McNally;