Japan is on the verge of constructing the world's most powerful supercomputer to keep pace with advancements in Artificial Intelligence. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has announced a project to build the first ZETA-class supercomputer, named Fugaku Next, by 2030.
To put it into perspective, FLOPS (Floating Point Operations Per Second) measure how many calculations a computer can perform in one second. The most powerful supercomputers currently available have just surpassed the exaFLOPS limit (more than a quintillion calculations per second, 10^18); the new Japanese computer is expected to reach the zetta FLOPS class (a sextillion calculations per second, 10^21), according to MEXT estimates.
The supercomputer will be developed by MEXT with the assistance of Fujitsu and RIKEN, companies that previously collaborated on Fugaku, the 0.44 exaFLOPS supercomputer that ranked fourth globally and held the top spot until 2022.
Some components designed by Fujitsu for Fugaku will also be used in Fugaku Next, allowing for cross-compatibility.
It will be interesting to see how the project is managed from a logistical and energy supply standpoint. In 2023, at the ISSCC conference in San Francisco, AMD CEO Lisa Su explained that the world's most powerful supercomputer (Frontier) consumed 21 megawatts of energy. If a zetta-scale computer were assembled using current supercomputing technologies, it would consume approximately 21 gigawatts, equivalent to the energy produced by 21 nuclear power plants. It will be fascinating to see what technologies MEXT will adopt to manage such power.
The project could cost up to $761 million, with MEXT already allocating the first $29 million for the initial year of design. Time is ticking, and 2030 is closer than we think. This could be another significant milestone in the process of artificial intelligence research.
Via: livescience.com
Comments