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Assignment #1
Top 500 Supercomputers



The goal of this assignment is to get you familiarized with the fatsest supercomputer as of last year (November 2022) and to allow you to understand concepts and details about High-Performance Computers or HPC.

Instructions

Check the Top 500 Supercomputers at www.top500.org and write a paragraph or two describing these Top 5 supercomputers as of November 2022. For each supercomputer in the top 5 list, make sure you mention:

  • Name of the machine, owner (institution), country, manufacturer.
  • Computational power: number of cores, memory, types of processors, power consumption, Rmax and Rpeak, HPCG, and any other benchmark performed to measure the machine’s computing power.
  • Operating system, interconnection network, GPU (if the system has them installed, please mentioned the type, version, and any relevant information).
  • A current or past research project that has been developed using the supercomputer (briefly talk about the project)
  • Any other information you deem appropriate.

NOTE: For this homework make sure that you understand the terminologies that you encounter as you read about these systems. Do not write things you don’t understand, i.e., explain at most once in your homework concepts like "HPCG", "Rmax" and "Rpeak", and so on. In this regard, make sure you explain what is the Linpack benchmark and how does it work.

Parts of this Assignment

This assignment should have 3 sections:

  1. Section 1 – Introduction: Where you introduce the work that you are about to do, some definitions (check notes above), why you think the Top500.org is important (if you do think is important, of course), and so on.
  2. Section 2 – Top 5 Supercomputers: Where you talk about the Top 5 supercomputer in the November 2022 Top 500 list.
  3. Section 3 – Conclusion: Where you talk about what was learned with this small research, what the future of supercomputing is (tendencies, projections, and so on). Make sure you pass by the “Statistics” section in Top500.org (as of November 2022) and add the following information to your conclusion:
    • Top 2 countries and top 2 continents in terms of the number of supercomputers owned.
    • Top operating systems used (why do you think the results look like this?).
    • Top 3 vendors.
    • Top 3 segments that use these supercomputers (e.g. industry, academia, research, and so on).

Format and Due Date

Submit a PDF version of your assignment Friday of Week 2 by 11:59PM via Kit (there will be a space where you can submit your PDF document). Make sure to include your name, the submission date, and course code (COMP481).

Important Links


EVALUATION

Assignment #1 is worth 15 points and will be submitted individually.

Have fun! And if you have any questions remember my email or contact me via Teams!



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