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Fugaku is a petascale supercomputer at the RIKEN Center for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan. It started development in 2014 as the successor to the K computer, and it is scheduled to start operating in 2021, although parts of the computer were put into operation in June 2020. It is the fastest supercomputer in the world in the TOP500 list.
The supercomputer is built with the Fujitsu A64FX microprocessor. This CPU is based on the ARM version 8.2A processor architecture, and adopts the Scalable Vector Extensions for supercomputers. Fugaku was aimed to be about 100 times more powerful than the K computer (i.e. a performance target of 1 exaFLOPS) and have a high level of practicability in the world. Fugaku uses 158,976 A64FX CPUs joined together using Fujitsu's propietary torus fusion interconnect.
The final reported performance of Fugaku is a Rpeak of 0.54 exaFLOPS in the FP64 used by the TOP500.
Fugaku will use a "light-weight multi-kernel operating system" named IHK/McKernel. The operating system uses both Linux and the McKernel light-weight kernel operating simultaneously and side-by-side. The infrastructure that both kernels run on is termed the Interface for Heterogeneous Kernels (IHK). The high performance simulations are run on McKernel, with Linux available for all other POSIX-compatible services.
On May 23, 2019, RIKEN announced that the supercomputer was to be named Fugaku. In August 2019, the logo for Fugaku was unveiled; it depicts Mount Fuji, symbolising "Fugaku's high performance" and "the wide range of its users". In November 2019, the prototype of Fugaku won first place in the Green500 list. Shipment of the equipment racks to the RIKEN facility began on December 2, 2019, and was completed on May 13, 2020. In June 2020, Fugaku became the fastest supercomputer in the world in the TOP500 list, displacing the IBM Summit.
In 2018 Nikkei reported the programme would cost ¥130 billion (c. US$1 billion ). The cost of the programme has caused significant controversy: in June 2020 the New York Times reported criticism of the expense, and that similar near-future exascale supercomputers would cost less and overtake Fugaku's performance. More details
The final reported performance of Fugaku is a Rpeak of 0.54 exaFLOPS in the FP64 used by the TOP500.
Fugaku will use a "light-weight multi-kernel operating system" named IHK/McKernel. The operating system uses both Linux and the McKernel light-weight kernel operating simultaneously and side-by-side. The infrastructure that both kernels run on is termed the Interface for Heterogeneous Kernels (IHK). The high performance simulations are run on McKernel, with Linux available for all other POSIX-compatible services.
On May 23, 2019, RIKEN announced that the supercomputer was to be named Fugaku. In August 2019, the logo for Fugaku was unveiled; it depicts Mount Fuji, symbolising "Fugaku's high performance" and "the wide range of its users". In November 2019, the prototype of Fugaku won first place in the Green500 list. Shipment of the equipment racks to the RIKEN facility began on December 2, 2019, and was completed on May 13, 2020. In June 2020, Fugaku became the fastest supercomputer in the world in the TOP500 list, displacing the IBM Summit.
In 2018 Nikkei reported the programme would cost ¥130 billion (c. US$1 billion ). The cost of the programme has caused significant controversy: in June 2020 the New York Times reported criticism of the expense, and that similar near-future exascale supercomputers would cost less and overtake Fugaku's performance. More details
