Photo/Illutration The Fugaku supercomputer in Kobe in 2020 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Japanese supercomputer Fugaku has lost bragging rights as the world's fastest to U.S.-built Frontier, ending its two-year reign at the top.

Fugaku fell to the second spot on the Top 500 supercomputer calculation speed ranking, announced on May 30.

Aptly named after Mount Fuji, Japan's tallest peak, Fugaku had maintained its title as the fastest in the world since June 2020.

In the latest ranking, Fugaku recorded the same speed as the previous year at 442 quadrillion calculations per second.

However, Frontier from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which appeared for the first time on the list, ran at about 2.5 times faster. It broke through the exascale threshold to perform 1.102 quintillion calculations per second.

While Fugaku slipped to second in calculation speed, it maintained the top spot for the fifth time in a row in two other categories--the speed at which it can run applications, and in big data analysis.

“Even in the fierce development competition, we continue to be at the world’s top level,” said Toshiyuki Imamura, a team leader at the Riken research institute, which jointly developed Fugaku along with computer major Fujitsu Ltd.

After Fugaku became in June 2020 the first Japanese supercomputer to top the world ranking in nine years since its predecessor, K, it retained the title for three consecutive times on the twice-yearly ranking in calculation speed.

Installed at the Riken center in Kobe, Fugaku had been used to study preventive measures against the novel coronavirus such as simulating the spread of the virus through droplet dispersion. The supercomputer was enlisted for the research even before it went into full-scale operation in March 2021.

Fugaku will also be used for research related to forecasting linear rainbands, which bring torrential downpours in a short period of time to regions under their wind paths. 

Related News