DIGI⁺ Taiwan

National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) announced Monday (July 8) that its Forerunner 1 supercomputer will go online later in July, replacing Taiwania 1.

Forerunner 1, built by the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC), has been under construction since 2023 and is located at NCHC’s Tainan branch, per CNA. It aims to provide academic and research organizations with high-speed computing resources.

NARLabs said Forerunner 1 is built with a CPU architecture, featuring 62,496 computing cores and a peak performance of up to 3.5 Petaflops with 9.2 PB (Petabytes) of storage. For the first time, the supercomputer includes 40 ARM architecture computing nodes, allowing users to conduct preliminary heterogeneous architecture tests, the research institute reported.

NARLabs added the NCHC is building supercomputers with different architectures to meet the demands of large-scale scientific and AI tasks. Forerunner 1 is suitable for various high-performance computing tasks, including climate prediction, molecular modeling, and engineering design, it explained.

NCHC Director General Chang Chau-lyan (張朝亮) said Forerunner 1 is set to replace the Taiwania 1, built in 2017, with better energy efficiency and enhanced performance. The goal is to achieve 200 to 300 Petaflops of computing power by 2028, the director added.

With the launch of Forerunner 1, the NCHC will continue to promote the development of high-performance computing technology and support Taiwan’s technological innovation, NARLabs said.

Date: 2024-7-8
Source: Taiwan Today