Lenovo continues to climb the list for the world’s top supercomputers in sales and performance with its latest machine hitting No. 13 on the global Top 500 list. Meanwhile, the U.S. drops out of the top 3 spots for only the second time in the annual report that dates back 49 years.

Machines in China rank No. 1 and 2 followed by a supercomputer in Switzerland.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Titan, a Cray XK7 system installed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, fell to number four in the rankings. However, the DO has recently signed a new contract with Cray, IBM and other firms with the goal of boosting U.S. supercomputing power.

The only other time the U.S. didn’t have a system in the top three came in 1996.

The high performance computing news is a bright spot for Lenovo’s Data Center Group, which is based in the Triangle. Despite struggling with sales and revenue performance that has led to reorganization and management changes, the Data Center Group can point to increasing supercomputer performance and sales as it continues to climb the prestigious Top 500 list.

Lenovo has surged to No. 2 among most systems deployed globally among the Top 500 with 88 machines, according to the Top 500 list released on Monday. Lenovo first cracked the list in 2014 as it acquired IBM’s x86 server business on which many supercomputers are based and is now the fastest growing vendor. HPE leads with 144 systems. Cray has 57 machines to rank No. 3.

“The fast delivery, installation and optimization of the MareNostrum 4 system at BSC, showcases Lenovo’s end-to-end, high-performance computing strength,” said Kirk Skaugen, president of Lenovo Data Center Group, in a statement early Monday. “Building on our 25 years of history in x86 server computing and our number one position in x86 server customer satisfaction and reliability, our goal at Lenovo is to be the largest supercomputing company on earth helping solve humanities biggest challenges through the rapid advancement of technology and innovation.”

Lenovo on Monday unveiled its most powerful machine yet, an Intel-based machine named MareNostrum 4, which will be based at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain. It is to be used for human genome research, bioinformatics and biomechanics.

Lenovo notes the new machine is the third to be deployed for the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe.

“From the lab to the factory, to the on-site implementation teams, the delivery of a system of this size and complexity demands a superior level of integration and skill,” said Madhu Matta, VP & GM of High Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence at Lenovo. “It requires a focus on a holistic customer experience that very few companies are capable of delivering.”

The top 10

The Top 500’s most powerful machines:

1. Sunway TaihuLight, a system developed by China’s National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology (NRCPC) and installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, maintains its top position. “With a Linpack performance of 93 petaflops, TaihuLight is far and away the most powerful number-cruncher on the planet,” Top 500 says.

2. Tianhe-2, (Milky Way-2), a system developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) and deployed at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzho, China, occupies the number two position with a Linpack mark of 33.9 petaflops. Tianhe-2 was the number one system in the TOP500 list for three consecutive years, until TaihuLight eclipsed it in June 2016, notes Top 500.

3. Piz Daint, a Cray XC50 system installed at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS). The upgrade was accomplished with additional NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs, doubling the Linpack performance of the system’s previous mark of 9.8 petaflops in November 2016, which itself was the result of a significant upgrade. Piz Daint’s current Linpack result of 19.6 petaflops enabled the system to climb five positions in the rankings.

4. Titan, a Cray XK7 system installed at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory.. Its Linpack mark of 17.6 petaflops has remained constant since it was installed in 2012.

5. Sequoia (17.2 petaflops), an IBM BlueGene/Q system installed at the DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, at number five;

6. Cori (14.0 petaflops), a Cray XC40 system housed at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), at number six;

7. Oakforest-PACS (13.6 petaflops), a Fujitsu PRIMERGY system running at Japan’s Joint Center for Advanced High Performance Computing, at number seven;

8. Fujitsu’s K computer (10.5 petaflops), installed at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS), at number eight;

9. Mira (8,6 petaflops), an IBM BlueGene/Q system installed at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, at number nine; and

10. Trinity (8.1 petaflops), a Cray XC40 system running at Los Alamos National Laboratory, at number ten.

Read more at:

https://www.top500.org/news/top500-list-refreshed-us-edged-out-of-third-place/