South Korea's Largest Supercomputer to Boost AI and Scientific Research

South Korea's Ambitious Supercomputing Project

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) has selected Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to construct South Korea's most powerful supercomputer, KISTI-6. This ambitious project aims to bolster the country's capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and scientific research, marking a significant leap in South Korea's technological infrastructure 1

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Advanced Technical Specifications

KISTI-6 will be built on the HPE Cray Supercomputing EX4000 system, featuring two distinct partitions. One partition will utilize NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips, while the other will employ 5th Gen AMD EPYC™ processors. This dual-architecture approach is designed to handle the extensive data processing required for AI training, inference, and complex simulations 1

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The supercomputer is expected to achieve a theoretical peak performance of 600 petaflops, which is more than half an exaflop. This impressive computational power will be complemented by HPE's Slingshot interconnect 400, an exascale-capable system that enables data transfers between compute and storage units at speeds of 400 gigabits per second 2

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Innovative Cooling and Storage Solutions

One of the most notable features of KISTI-6 is its 100% fanless direct liquid cooling system. This advanced cooling architecture is designed to deliver superior efficiency, sustainability, and density compared to traditional air-cooled systems 1

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To manage the increasing demands of data-intensive workloads, KISTI has also opted for HPE Cray Supercomputing Storage Systems E2000. This storage solution integrates fast Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) and high-capacity Near Line (NL)-SAS disks, alongside the HPE Data Management Framework (DMF) for efficient and scalable data management 2

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Implications for Research and Innovation

KISTI-6 is set to serve a wide range of data-intensive research projects and will form the backbone of AI and simulation research and development in South Korea. The supercomputer will be accessible to various users, including research institutions, universities, and commercial companies of all sizes 1

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Sik Lee, President of KISTI, emphasized the project's strategic importance: "Our goal is to work with HPE, AMD and NVIDIA to cement Korea's position as a leading country for supercomputing and sovereign AI innovation. We want to nurture experts in data utilization, high performance computing and AI technologies to help bolster our scientific and technological competitiveness" 2

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Industry Collaboration and Future Prospects

The development of KISTI-6 represents a collaborative effort between several tech giants. John Josephakis, Vice President of Supercomputing and HPC at NVIDIA, highlighted the growing reliance on advanced AI and simulation capabilities in global research. He stated, "By collaborating with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and HPE, we're expanding access to high-performance computing, empowering industries and teams to innovate faster and more efficiently" 1

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Peter Chambers from AMD also emphasized the importance of energy efficiency in supercomputing, noting that their 5th Gen AMD EPYC™ processors will enable researchers to solve complex problems quickly and efficiently 2

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As South Korea positions itself at the forefront of supercomputing and AI innovation, KISTI-6 is poised to play a crucial role in advancing the country's scientific and technological competitiveness on the global stage.