Intel and Cray make Aurora Supercomputer

Intel announced today that the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne Leadership Computing Facility has ordered two new supercomputers. These machines will be called Aurora.

Today Intel announced the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne Leadership Computing Facility ordered two new supercomputers from Intel Federal LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel Corporation.

Designed and built in partnership with Cray Inc., one of the new supercomputers will be called Aurora. The systems are based on Intel’s high performance computing (HPC) scalable system framework and Cray’s next-generation Shasta supercomputer.

“The selection of Intel to deliver the Aurora supercomputer is validation of our unique position to lead a new era in HPC,” said Raj Hazra, vice president, Data Center Group and general manager, Technical Computing Group at Intel. “Intel’s HPC scalable system framework enables balanced, scalable and efficient systems while extending the ecosystem’s decades of software investment to future generations. We look forward to the numerous scientific discoveries and the far-reaching impacts on society that Aurora will enable.” 

Aurora will be delivered in 2018 and will have a peak performance of 180 petaFLOPS, making it the largest system currently procured worldwide. This contract is part of the DOE’s initiative to build state-of-the-art supercomputers at Argonne, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories that will help advance U.S. leadership in scientific research and position it at the forefront of next generation exascale computing for years to come. The Aurora system will be 18 times more powerful than its predecessor, Mira, while utilizing only 2.7 times the energy usage.

The second supercomputer, to be named Theta, will serve as an early production system for the ALCF. To be delivered in the 2016, the system will provide performance of 8.5 petaflops while requiring only 1.7 megawatts of power.

“Argonne’s decision to utilize Intel’s HPC scalable system framework stems from the fact it is designed to deliver a well-balanced and adaptable system capable of supporting both compute-intensive and data-intensive workloads,” said Rick Stevens, associate laboratory director for Argonne National Laboratory. “We look forward to collaborating with both Intel and Cray on this important project that will be critically important to U.S. high-performance computing efforts for years to come.”