As part of a $600 million contract, the U.S. Department of Energy has tasked Cray with building the world’s fastest supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “Frontier” is expected to break records when it debuts in 2021, offering over 1.5 exaflops of performance.
Assisting with this endeavor will be AMD, which is complementing Cray’s Shasta architecture and Slingshot interconnect with AI-optimized AMD EPYC processors and Radeon Instinct GPU accelerators. These will be connected via high-speed Infinity Fabric links.
“AMD is proud to be working with Cray, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Department of Energy to push the boundaries of high-performance computing with Frontier,” said Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. “Today’s announcement represents the power of collaboration between private industry and public research institutions to deliver groundbreaking innovations that scientists can use to solve some of the world’s biggest problems.”