Computers have changed the landscape of the modern world, and the next 10 years are supposed to transform our perception of what’s possible and what’s not. Thus, simply put, we need stronger computers. Nvidia realises that, and has vowed to help build the fastest supercomputer in the world, a system that has been named ‘Leonardo,’ and is being developed by the Italian multi-university consortium CINECA, a global supercomputing leader.
The goal of the supercomputer is simple. Keep up with the growing technology. It’s clear that AI and Machine Learning are the future of computing, and might become a huge part of scientific research and industry in a few years. In fact, a lot of experiments today are already being done on computers, through programming. However, the computers we have today are simply not capable of producing results in some overly complicated scenarios.
This is where systems like Leonardo can help. The computer will deliver as much as 10 exaflops of FP16 AI performance capabilities, powered by more than 14,000 Nvidia Ampere-based GPUS once completed. To put things in perspective, AMD and Cray announced in 2019 that they will build the ‘fastest supercomputer in the world,’ which will only have 1.5 exaflops of processing power in comparison.
Leonardo will be one of 4 computers, that will be a part of a Europe spanning effort to increase the region’s computing power. Other computers in this cluster have been named MeluXina (in Luxembourg) and Vega (in Slovenia). Another computer that has not been named yet is set to be build in the Czech Republic. Plans to create 4 more supercomputers in Bulgaria, Finland, Portugal and Spain are being evaluated, although those probably won’t come for a long time.
However, a computer this powerful is useless if it can’t communicate at high speeds. Thus, Nvidia will also supply its Mellanox HDR InfiniBand networks to Leonardo enable performance across the clusters with low-latency broadband connections.
Once completed, these supercomputers will open up the door for a wide range of scientific advancements, and possibly change the future of humanity.
