State of Supercomputers around the World

Introduction

I was working on a problem which I know its large instances are solved on supercomputers. This made me wonder the current state of supercomputers and particularly which countries have them (or have access to them). I made a simple analysis combining:

• TOP500 supercomputers list (June 2024)
• List of countries by nominal GDP (IMF 2024 forecast)

It is not surprising that the supercomputers are mostly located in countries having the highest GDP, but there are some surprising or interesting results. Please be aware that the list of supercomputers are very fluid, it changes every year. Also, TOP500 entries are based on where the supercomputer is hosted. Particularly for Europe, the access to supercomputers are shared.

The performance of a supercomputer is reported as PFlop/s (peta floating point operations per second) based on a standard benchmark (LINPACK). A mid-range (petascale) or larger (pre-exascale or exascale) supercomputer usually have two partitions, one consists of CPUs, the other consists of accelerated computing units or GPUs. In this post, if I report a single performance number, it should be understood as the combined figure (CPU performance + GPU performance). These numbers are sometimes close (particularly for small or mid-range), sometimes quite different, depending on the supercomputer’s architecture.

The last entry in TOP500 list (HSUper in Germany) has the performance (Rmax) of 2.13 PFlop/s. All countries have some high performance computing (HPC) capabilities. In this post, if I write there is no supercomputer in a country, it should be understood as there is no entry in TOP500 from this country. Thus, it means either there is no (super)computer in this country with a higher performance than 2.13 PFlop/s or no submission to TOP500 has been made. For example, the data in TOP500 and the conclusions in this post about supercomputers in China most probably does not reflect the reality.

Major Changes in TOP500 from November 2023 to June 2024

• Aurora in United States almost doubled its performance, since it is still being commissioned, and became the second exascale supercomputer in United States. It is still number 2 in TOP500 after Frontier also in US.

• Alps in Switzerland enters TOP500 at number 6.

• Venado in United States enters TOP500 at number 11.

• CEA-HE in France enters TOP500 at number 17.

• There are a few new entries to TOP500 from Poland:

  • Helios GPU at number 55.
  • Proxima at number 76.
  • LEM at number 80.
  • Kraken Fregata at number 154.

• Opera KEF-1 in Iceland enters TOP500 at number 88. This belongs to Opera and it seems to be an AI data cluster based on NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD.

• C24 in Czechia enters TOP500 at number 112. This belongs to Skoda Auto a.s.

• Deucalion in Portugal enters TOP500 at number 219.

• ARF in Turkey enters TOP500 at number 313.

TOP500-GDP

For this post, I use the table below which I call TOP500-GDP table. It consists of all countries of TOP500 entries and also European Union (EU) and African Union (AU). The table is ordered by TOP500/GDP ratio. The columns are:

• Total Rmax (PFlop/s): sum of Rmax of all TOP500 entries from this country/from this union
• Total Rmax %: Total Rmax of a country divided by the Total Rmax of all entries in TOP500
• Nominal GDP Rank of the country
• Nominal GDP %: Nominal GDP of country divided by the sum of nominal GDPs of all countries
• TOP500/GDP Ratio: Total Rmax % divided by Nominal GDP %

European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU)

The reason for Finland being at the very top of the table with a large margin is the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). Basically, EuroHPC JU, with its participating countries, create a “Supercomputing Ecosystem in Europe”.

EuroHPC is created in 2018 and became autonomous in 2020. There are some conditions but a EuroHPC JU member does not have to be a EU member state, current EuroHPC JU public members are:

• Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
• Montenegro, North Macedonia and Türkiye*
• Serbia (joined in June 2022)
• Israel (joined in October 2023)
• United Kingdom (joined in May 2024)

*Turkey has changed its official international name from Turkey (English spelling) to Türkiye (Turkish spelling). In this post, I use the form as it is used in the original resource so sometimes Turkey sometimes Türkiye.

Although Switzerland was an early EuroHPC JU member (signed the EuroHPC declaration in 2017), I believe because it has a non-associated third country status in Horizon package at the moment, it is not a member of EuroHPC JU.

EuroHPC JU contributes up to 50% of the costs of pre-exascale supercomputers (such as MareNostrum 5), up to 35% of the costs of petascale supercomputers and up to 50% of the costs of quantum computers.

The access to EuroHPC JU supercomputers are based on the financial contributions. EU member states have access to all EuroHPC JU supercomputers based on the contribution of EuroHPC JU, but the countries can also individually contribute to the supercomputer projects and have access according to their contribution. For example:

• MareNostrum 5 (in Spain) is funded by EuroHPC JU (50%), Spain (35%), Turkey (10%) and Portugal (5%)
• LUMI (in Finland) is funded by EuroHPC JU (50%) and LUMI Consortium countries: Finland, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland (5%)

EuroHPC JU supercomputers

At the moment, there are 8 (3 pre-exascale, 5 petascale) operational supercomputers of EuroHPC JU:

(multiple numbers are because GPU and CPU partitions are benchmarked separately)

In addition to Finland, this also explains the relatively strong position of Italy and Spain, as well as the TOP500 entries from Luxembourg, Czechia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Portugal.

In June 2022, EuroHPC JU announced five new sites for new supercomputers; Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland and Poland. The first to be operational later this year is in Germany, and it will be Europe’s first exascale supercomputer called JUPITER. The only other (known) exascale computers in the world is in US, Frontier and Aurora. It is not known for sure but it is believed that China also has an exascale supercomputer.

In June 2023, the second exascale computer Jules Verne in France and a mid-range supercomputer Arrhenius in Sweden added to this list. So there are seven planned supercomputers of EuroHPC JU:

*Calculated indirectly, because it is mentioned that CASPIr will be 25x more powerful than current supercomputer called Kay which is 665 TFlop/s.

**There is not much information regarding EHPCPL yet, its performance is said to be several times of current supercomputer called Athena which is 7.7 PFlop/s.

European Quantum Computing and Simulation Infrastructure (EuroQCS)

This post is not about quantum computing but I would like to very briefly mention this.

In October 2022, EuroHPC JU selected six sites to host the first European quantum computers. At the moment, there are no operating quantum computers but the following projects are ongoing:

In addition to these, there is an analog quantum simulator project, HPCQS, in France. This will install two (at least) 100 qubits Fresnel analog quantum computers using neutral atoms on a technology developed by French startup PASQAL.

Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE)

I do not exactly know the relationship between PRACE and EuroHPC JU but PRACE was formed before and PRACE also provides a number of high performance computing systems to PRACE members. The computing systems of PRACE are slightly older so the most powerful supercomputer within PRACE is JUWELS in Germany (JUWELS Booster Module is 21st in TOP500) and the second is Piz Daint in Switzerland (Piz Daint is 43th in TOP500).

Analysis

I categorize the countries (plus EU and AU) into four groups based on the TOP500/GDP ratio. I call these groups:

• Supercomputing leaders: countries having a ratio greater than 2
• Supercomputer users: countries having the ratio around 1, specifically between 0.5 and 2
• Supercomputer owners: countries having a ratio less than 0.5
• Supercomputer laggers: countries with large economies (top 30 in nominal GDP list) with no TOP500 entries

Below I analyse the situation for each country, each row in TOP500-GDP table. The countries below are ordered by TOP500/GDP ratio and I also wrote their nominal GDP rank in the title. At the end, I also give information about a few countries that have no TOP500 entries but deserve a particular mention.

Supercomputing Leaders

Finland (16.92) (GDP Rank: 47)

Finland is a major outlier in TOP500-GDP table due to the presence of the EuroHPC JU pre-exascale supercomputer LUMI in Finland and Finland’s nominal GDP rank. LUMI (5th in TOP500) is hosted at EuroHPC/CSC and has a performance of 386 PFlop/s.

In addition to LUMI, Finland has another entry in TOP500, called MAHTI (5.3 PFlop/s).

Switzerland (4.43) (GDP Rank: 20)

Alps supercomputer is upgraded and entered TOP500 at number 6, and Switzerland moved to a very high position in this table. Alps (6th in TOP500) is hosted at Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) and has a performance of 270 PFlop/s.

Switzerland also has 4 more entries in TOP500. The one with the least performance (2.3 PFlop/s) is a commercial installation. All others are also hosted at CSCS.

Being a consortium member, Switzerland also has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

Iceland (4.21) (GDP Rank: 110)

Iceland has only one entry in TOP500. The supercomputer Opera KEF-1 SuperPOD is a commercial installation and has a performance of 10.5 PFlop/s.

Being a consortium member, Iceland also has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

Japan (2.18) (GDP Rank: 4)

Japan has 29 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer Fugaku (4th in TOP500) is hosted at RIKEN Center for Computational Science and has a performance of 442 PFlop/s.

Together with United States, they are the only two countries with a very large economy and population in supercomputing leaders group.

United States (2.04) (GDP Rank: 1)

United States has 171 entries in TOP500. The first three, 9th and 10th entries in TOP500 are in United States. The first is Frontier (1.2 EFlop/s) and the second is Aurora (1 EFlop/s). Frontier is hosted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Aurora is hosted at Argonne National Laboratory.

United States, like Japan, has a TOP500/GDP ratio slightly over 2. Moreover, since US has over 26% of the global GDP, the country also host more than half (over 53%) of all global supercomputer resources. Also, United States is the only country having (two) exascale supercomputers based on public information.

Supercomputer Users

Luxembourg (1.93) (GDP Rank: 75)

Luxembourg has only one entry in TOP500. The EuroHPC JU supercomputer MeluXina is hosted at LuxProvide and has a performance of 12.8 PFlop/s.

Luxembourg is also the location of EuroHPC JU office.

Italy (1.90) (GDP Rank: 9)

Italy has 11 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer is the EuroHPC JU pre-exascale supercomputer Leonardo (7th in TOP500) is hosted at EuroHPC/CINECA and has a performance of 249 PFlop/s.

This supercomputer only accounts for roughly 2/3 of supercomputer resources in Italy. The country also has multiple supercomputers belonging to Eni S.p.A. and also supercomputers in European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

Spain (1.79) (GDP Rank: 15)

Spain has 3 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer is the EuroHPC JU pre-exascale supercomputer MareNostrum 5 (8th in TOP500) is hosted at EuroHPC/BSC and has a performance of 215 PFlop/s.

South Korea (1.41) (GDP Rank: 14)

South Korea has 13 entries in TOP500, and 7 of them are commercial installations. The most powerful supercomputer Sejong (32.9 PFlop/s) belogns to NAVER Corp. closely followed by SSC-21 (25.1 PFlop/s) of Samsung Electronics.

Slovenia (1.28) (GDP Rank: 88)

Slovenia has only one entry in TOP500. The EuroHPC JU supercomputer Vega (6.9 PFLop/s) is hosted at the Institute of Information Science (IZUM).

Being a consortium member, Slovenia also has a share in Leonardo pre-exascale supercomputer in Italy.

European Union (EU) (1.21)

EU as a whole has more share in supercomputer resources (21%) compared to its global GDP share (17.35%), however it is still behind United States and Japan if TOP500/GDP ratio is considered. The start of operation of first exascale supercomputer in Germany later this year will probably change this and move EU to supercomputing leaders group.

Saudi Arabia (1.20) (GDP Rank: 19)

Saudi Arabia has 7 entries in TOP500 and 5 of them belongs to Saudi Aramco, a very large energy company. However, the most powerful supercomputer Shaheen III (35.6 PFlop/s) is located in King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.

Sweden (1.07) (GDP Rank: 24)

Sweden has 7 entries in TOP500, where the most and the least powerful are commercial installations (of DeepL and an automative company). The national supercomputer Dardel (12.3 PFlop/s) is hosted at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH.

Being a consortium member, Sweden also has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

Poland (1.04) (GDP Rank: 21)

Poland has 8 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer Helios (22 PFlop/s) is hosted at Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH.

Being a consortium member, Poland also has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

Additionally, Poland is selected to host the EuroHPC JU mid-range supercomputer EHPCPL having a performance of more than 7.7 PFlop/s (I could not find the exact figure yet). This will put Poland further up in my list.

I find Poland positively a very interesting country in this post. It has supercomputers, it is part of a exa-scale supercomputer consortium, it is going to host a new EuroHPC JU supercomputer and also it will have the EuroQCS-Poland quantum computer.

France (0.99) (GDP Rank: 7)

France has 24 entries in TOP500. The three most powerful supercomputers in France (number 17, 20 and 36 in TOP500) are public installations at Atomic Energy Commission CEA (57.1 PFlop/s and 23.2 PFlop/s) and national computing center GENCI-CINES (46.1 PFlop/s). There are also multiple commercial supercomputers e.g. of Total Energies.

The second exascale computer in Europe will be hosted in France.

France has a neutral position in my list, as TOP500/GDP ratio is almost 1. However, being 7th in nominal GDP list, it might be expected to see France at a higher position, and this will probably be the case when the exascale supercomputer is operational.

The Netherlands (0.99) (GDP Rank: 17)

The Netherlands has 9 entries in TOP500, where 7 of these are commercial installations. The national supercomputer Snellius (9 PFlop/s) is hosted at SURF. However, the most powerful supercomputer ISEG is a commercial installation of Nebius AI and has a performance of over 46 PFlop/s.

Being a consortium member, the Netherlands also has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

Taiwan (0.89) (GDP Rank: 22)

Taiwan has 6 entries in TOP500 and the most powerful supercomputer TAIPEI-1 is a commercial installation of NVIDIA Corporation with a performance of over 22 PFlop/s.

Bulgaria (0.86) (GDP Rank: 69)

Bulgaria has 2 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer is the EuroHPC JU supercomputer Discoverer (4.5 PFlop/s).

In addition to Discoverer, Bulgaria also has another entry in TOP500 called HEMUS (2.5 PFlops/).

Germany (0.80) (GDP Rank: 3)

Germany has 40 entries TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer JUWELS (50.2 PFlop/s) is hosted at Juelich Research Center (FZJ).

Probably one of the most expected events this year in the world of supercomputers is the launch of -Europe’s first- exascale supercomputer JUPITER in Germany. Similar to EuroHPC JU pre-exascale supercomputers, JUPITER is 50% funded by EuroHPC JU, but differently, the remaining 50% comes only from Germany.

Being 3rd in nominal GDP list, it is expected to see Germany at a higher position in my list, and this will probably be the case when JUPITER is operational.

Czechia (0.74) (GDP Rank: 46)

Czechia has 3 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer C24 belongs to Skoda Auto a.s. and has a performance of 8.4 PFlop/s.

Czechia also hosts the EuroHPC JU supercomputer Karolina (9.5 PFlop/s) at the IT4Innovations National Supercomputer Center.

Being a consortium member, Czechia also has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

Supercomputer Owners

Russia (0.48) (GDP Rank: 11)

Russia has 7 entries in TOP500. The most powerful three supercomputes belong to Yandex and the most powerful one is called Chervonenkis (21.5 PFlop/s).

Australia (0.41) (GDP Rank: 13)

Australia has 5 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer Setonix (27.1 PFlop/s) is hosted at Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. All other supercomputers are also public installations.

Norway (0.40) (GDP Rank: 31)

Norway has 5 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer Betzy (4.7 PFlop/s) is hosted at Sigma2. All other supercomputers are commercial installations.

Being a consortium member, Norway also has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

United Kingdom (0.34) (GDP Rank: 6)

UK has 16 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer ARCHER2 (19.5 PFlop/s) is hosted at the University of Edinburgh.

Most of the other supercomputers are also public installations.

Being 6th in nominal GDP list, it is surprising to see UK at this relatively low position in my list.

United Arab Emirates (0.31) (GDP Rank: 30)

United Arab Emirates has 2 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer Artemis (7.2 PFlop/s) belongs to Group 42.

Brazil (0.31) (GDP Rank: 8)

Brazil has 8 entries in TOP500, and all of them are commercial installations. 6 of these supercomputers belong to Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.

Morocco (0.28) (GDP Rank: 61)

Morocco has one entry in TOP500 list, and it is the only entry from Africa (and hence from the African Union). The supercomputer Toubkal (3.1 PFlop/s) is hosted at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P).

Ireland (0.27) (GDP Rank: 26)

Ireland has 4 entries in TOP500 and all supercomputers are commercial installations.

The existing public HPC platform in Ireland reached its service life and the new EuroHPC JU supercomputer CASPIr to be installed in Ireland is delayed, an interim solution is developed to use the MeluXina supercomputer in Luxembourg. (Source: Introducing the Interim National HPC Service). When CASPIr become operational, it will definitely move Ireland up in my list.

China (0.26) (GDP Rank: 2)

China has 80 entries in TOP500, however it is quite hard to say anything about China’s position just by looking at TOP500. The last new supercomputer submission from China was Sunway TaihuLight in 2016, which became the most supercomputer in the world at that time. It is not hard to guess there has to be new supercomputers installed in China since 2016.

There are some reports that in 2021 China already had two exascale (one >1 EFlop/s, other >1.3 EFlop/s) computers and a third one was already planned for 2022.

At the moment, the supercomputers in China in TOP500 list has 407 PFlop/s. It would not be a bad estimate to say the real number is probably over 2000 PFlop/s. This would put China close to EU, United States and Japan in my list.

Canada (0.24) (GDP Rank: 10)

Canada has 10 entries in TOP500. The two most powerful supercomputers Underhill and Robery are hosted at Shared Services Canada and both have a performance of 7.7 PFlop/s.

Being 10th in the nominal GDP list, it is also surprising to see Canada at this position in my list. I do not know if they have access to supercomputing resources in United States.

Singapore (0.23) (GDP Rank: 32)

Singapore has 3 entries in TOP500. All three supercomputers are similar, having a performance figure between 2.5-3.5 PFlop/s. Two of the supercomputers are hosted at National Supercomputing Centre (NSSC), the other is a commercial installation.

Thailand (0.20) (GDP Rank: 27)

Thailand has only one entry in TOP500. The supercomputer LANTA (8.1 PFlop/s) is hosted at the NSTDA Supercomputer Center (ThaiSC).

Hungary (0.19) (GDP Rank: 57)

Hungary has only one entry in TOP500. The supercomputer Komondor (3.1 PFlop/s) is hosted at KIFÜ.

Hungary is selected to host the EuroHPC JU supercomputer Levente.

Portugal (0.18) (GDP Rank: 48)

Portugal has only one entry in TOP500, and it is a new entry. The EuroHPC JU supercomputer Deucalion has a performance of 3.9 PFlop/s and hosted at Minho Advanced Computing Center.

Being a consortium member, Portugal also has a share in MareNostrum 5 pre-exascale supercomputer in Spain.

Austria (0.12) (GDP Rank: 28)

Austria has 2 entries in TOP500, the supercomputers VSC-4 and VSC-5, and they are both hosted by Vienna Scientific Cluster. They are similar, one has a performance of 2.73 PFlop/s, the other 2.31 PFlop/s.

Being a consortium member, Austria also has a share in Leonardo pre-exascale supercomputer in Italy.

Argentina (0.09) (GDP Rank: 25)

Argentina has only one entry in TOP500. The supercomputer Clementina XXI is hosted by the National Meteorological Service and has a performance of 3.8 PFlop/s.

It seems that is actually not the full story. Clementina XXI is or will be 15.3 PFlop/s and only 10% will be used by the weather service. The remaining capacity will be used for scientific purposes. This means the Argentina’s entry in TOP500 will probably change in near future.

India (0.07) (GDP Rank: 5)

India has 4 entries in TOP500. The most powerful supercomputer AIRAWAT-PSAI is hosted at (Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and has a performance of 8.5 PFlop/s.

Belgium (0.06) (GDP Rank: 23)

Belgium has only one entry in TOP500, at number 356. The supercompuer Lucia is hosted at Cenaero and has a performance of over 2.7 PFlop/s.

Being a consortium member, Belgium also has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

Turkey (0.04) (GDP Rank: 18)

Turkey has only one entry in TOP500, at number 313, and it is a new entry. The supercomputer Arf is hosted by TRUBA and has a performance of 3 PFlop/s.

Being a consortium member, Turkey also has a share in MareNostrum 5 pre-exascale supercomputer in Spain.

African Union (AU) (0.02)

African Union is the last in the list because only Morocco has a supercomputer at the moment. This is probably going to change in a few years as there is a plan to install a major supercomputer in South Africa.

Supercomputer Laggers

Mexico (GDP Rank: 12)

Mexico is 12th in nominal GDP list, and it had an entry in TOP500 before, but it has none at the moment.

Indonesia (GDP Rank: 16)

Indonesia is 16th in nominal GDP list, but it has no entry in TOP500.

Israel (GDP Rank: 29)

Israel is 29th in nominal GDP list, but it has no TOP500 entry. However the first phase of Israel-1 was completed in late 2023. This computer will have 130 PFlop/s computational power and would put Israel to a quite high position in this list.

Consortium members of EuroHPC JU pre-exascale supercomputers

The countries below currently has no entries in TOP500. However, they are part of the consortium of a EuroHPC JU pre-exascale supercomputers. Since a 5% share in these supercomputers would mean >10 PFlop/s, this would effectively mean they are in one of three categories above.

Denmark (GDP Rank: 38)

Being a consortium member, Denmark has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

Estonia (GDP Rank: 103)

Being a consortium member, Estonia has a share in LUMI pre-exascale supercomputer in Finland.

Greece (GDP Rank: 55)

Being a consortium member, Greece has a share in Leonardo pre-exascale supercomputer in Italy.

Greece is selected to host the EuroHPC JU mid-range supercomputer Daedalus. This will put Greece in a very strong position in my list.

Slovakia (GDP Rank: 62)

Being a consortium member, Slovakia has a share in Leonardo pre-exascale supercomputer in Italy.

Other countries at nominal GDP rank from 30 to 50

From 30th to 50th position in nominal GDP list, United Arab Emirates (30th), Norway (31st), Singapore (32nd), Czechia (46th), Finland (47th) and Portugal (48th) have entries in TOP500.

The following countries from 33th to 50th in the nominal GDP list has no entries in TOP500: Philippines, Vietnam, Iran, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Colombia, South Africa, Romania, Egypt, Pakistan, Chile, Kazakhstan, Peru.

As an EU member state, Denmark have access to EuroHPC JU supercomputers and as mentioned above Denmark also has a share in LUMI.

South Africa had multiple entries in TOP500 before, each having around 1 PFlop/s performance, such as Lengau, but it has no entry at the moment. There is a project to install a major supercomputer around 135 PFlop/s as part of Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project which is planned to be operational in 2027.

As an EU member state, Romania have access to EuroHPC JU supercomputers.