El Capitan Supercomputer: AMD ZEN4 CPUs & Instinct GPUs offer 2 Exaflops of Compute

AMD, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and HPE announced that El Capitan, the upcoming exascale-class supercomputer, will have more than 2 exaflops of double precision performance powered by next generation AMD EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs. that makes it the world's fastest super-computer.

The system features next generation AMD EPYC processors, codenamed “Genoa” featuring the “Zen 4” processor core, next generation AMD Radeon Instinct GPUs based on a new compute optimized architecture, 3rd Gen AMD Infinity Architecture and open source AMD ROCm heterogeneous computing software. El Capitan will be the second exascale system in the U.S. powered by AMD CPUs and GPUs and is expected to be more powerful than today’s 200 fastest supercomputers combined and 10x faster than the world’s current fastest supercomputer.

El Capitan will support National Nuclear Security Administration requirements for its primary mission of ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear stockpile. The AMD based nodes will be optimized to accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads that benefit NNSA missions.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — March 4, 2020 — AMD today joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and HPE, in announcing that El Capitan, the upcoming exascale class supercomputer at LLNL, will be powered by next generation AMD EPYC™ CPUs, AMD Radeon™ Instinct GPUs and open source AMD ROCm heterogeneous computing software. With delivery expected in early 2023, the El Capitan system is expected to be the world’s fastest supercomputer with more than 2 exaflops of double precision performance. This record setting performance will support National Nuclear Security Administration requirements for its primary mission of ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear stockpile.

The AMD based nodes will be optimized to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) workloads to potentially enable the expanded use of AI and ML into the research, computational techniques and analysis that benefits NNSA missions.

“El Capitan will drive unprecedented advancements in HPC and AI, powered by the next generation AMD EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs,” said Forrest Norrod, senior vice president and general manager, Datacenter and Embedded Systems Group, AMD. “Building on our strong foundation in high-performance computing and adding transformative coherency capabilities, AMD is enabling the NNSA Tri-Lab community—LLNL and the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories—to achieve their mission critical objectives and contribute new AI advancements to the industry. We are extremely proud to continue our exascale work with HPE and NNSA and look forward to the delivery of the most powerful supercomputer in the world expected in early 2023.”

AMD Technology Powering El Capitan

AMD is applying its experience from the high-performance computing industry and advancing its existing CPU and GPU designs for El Capitan, enabling the system to be architected for maximum performance and ease of use.

AMD technology within El Capitan includes:

• Next generation AMD EPYC processors, codenamed “Genoa” featuring the “Zen 4” processor core. These processors will support next generation memory and I/O sub systems for AI and HPC workloads,
• Next generation Radeon Instinct GPUs based on a new compute-optimized architecture for workloads including HPC and AI. These GPUs will use the next- generation high bandwidth memory and are designed for optimum deep learning performance,
• The 3^rd Gen AMD Infinity Architecture, which will provide a high-bandwidth, low latency connection between the four Radeon Instinct GPUs and one AMD EPYC CPU included in each node of El Capitan. As well, the 3^rd Gen AMD Infinity Architecture includes unified memory across the CPU and GPU, easing programmer access to accelerated computing,
• An enhanced version of the open source ROCm heterogenous programming environment, being developed to tap into the combined performance of AMD CPUs and GPUs, unlocking maximum performance.

“This unprecedented computing capability, powered by advanced CPU and GPU technology from AMD, will sustain America’s position on the global stage in high performance computing and provide an observable example of the commitment of the country to maintaining an unparalleled nuclear deterrent,” said LLNL Lab Director Bill Goldstein. “Today’s news provides a prime example of how government and industry can work together for the benefit of the entire nation.”

El Capitan comes with a $600 million price tag.