Frontier (supercomputer)

Frontier (supercomputer). Frontier is an exascale supercomputer housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, United States. It was the first system to achieve a performance level exceeding one exaflop, officially claiming the top spot on the TOP500 list in May 2022. The system is a Cray EX platform developed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and is dedicated to open scientific research across fields like climate science, materials science, and nuclear fusion.

Overview

Frontier is operated by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility as part of the United States Department of Energy's Exascale Computing Project. The system is installed in a dedicated facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory campus, a key site within the DOE National Laboratory System. Its primary mission is to provide unprecedented computational power for projects in energy security, biological science, and artificial intelligence research. Access to Frontier is granted through a competitive peer-review process managed by the DOE Office of Science.

Hardware and architecture

The supercomputer is based on the HPE Cray EX235a architecture, integrating AMD EPYC CPUs and AMD Instinct GPU accelerators. Each compute node combines one AMD EPYC 7A53 processor with four AMD Instinct MI250X accelerators, interconnected via HPE Slingshot networking technology. The system utilizes a direct liquid cooling system to manage the significant heat generated by its dense compute cabinets. Frontier's total storage hierarchy includes a Lustre-based parallel file system and utilizes Cray ClusterStor technology for high-speed data handling.

Software and applications

Frontier runs a customized version of HPE Cray OS, a Linux-based operating system designed for large-scale high-performance computing. Key programming models supported include OpenMP, HIP, and MPI, enabling scientists to port applications from previous systems like Summit. Early application ports and tests have focused on codes for cancer research, quantum chromodynamics, and turbulence modeling. The software stack also supports workflows for machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch.

Performance and rankings

In May 2022, Frontier achieved 1.194 exaFLOPS on the High Performance Linpack benchmark, securing the number one position on the TOP500 list and becoming the world's first official exascale system. It also topped the HPL-AI and Graph500 benchmarks concurrently, demonstrating balanced performance for both traditional and data-intensive workloads. The system maintained its top ranking on subsequent TOP500 lists, including in November 2022 and June 2023, before being surpassed by Aurora. Its performance is sustained by a power draw of approximately 21 megawatts.

History and development

The contract to build Frontier was awarded to Cray Inc. (later acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise) by the United States Department of Energy in 2019. Construction and installation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory occurred throughout 2021, facing some supply chain delays related to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The system completed acceptance testing in early 2022 and was inaugurated for full user operations later that year. Frontier represents a culmination of efforts by the Exascale Computing Project, a collaborative initiative involving the DOE, National Nuclear Security Administration, and numerous academic and industry partners.

Category:Supercomputers Category:Oak Ridge National Laboratory Category:High-performance computing Category:2022 establishments in Tennessee