May 27, 2021, was the day when the world's fastest AI Supercomputer was launched. Tech giant Nvidia and National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) were behind the creation of this supercomputer. This supercomputer is the fastest supercomputer ever. The name of this supercomputer is Perlmutter. This supercomputer is named after Saul Perlmutter Ji.
Saul Perlmutter, who is also an astrophysicist at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. Talking about "Perlmutter", then this supercomputer is being said to be the fastest in performing artificial intelligence (AI) related tasks.
However, initially, Perlmutter will be tasked with creating the largest 3D map of our universe ever built before moving on to other AI-based projects in the future. In addition, the researchers will add even more AI computing power to the system as part of its second phase of development later this year.
“In one project, the supercomputer will help assemble the largest ever 3D map of the visible universe. It will process data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a kind of cosmic camera that can capture 5,000 galaxies in a single exposure,” wrote Dion Harris in a blog post.
Now, coming to the computer's internals, Perlmutter packs 6,144 Nvidia A100 Tensor Core GPUs.
So, over six thousand Nvidia GPUs will power the system to process some of the most complex AI-based tasks. It is expected to give more than 7,000 NERSC researchers access to four exaflops of mixed-precision computing performance for AI-based scientific research.
“Traditional supercomputers can barely handle the math needed to generate simulations of a few atoms in a few nanoseconds with programs like Quantum Espresso. But by combining their highly accurate simulations with machine learning, scientists can study more atoms over a longer period of time,” said Wahid Bhimji, acting head of NERSC's data and analytics services team.
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