AMD has the two fastest supercomputers in the world, El Capitan and Frontier. HPE is also always represented in the rankings.

A Top500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers is compiled every six months. AMD has been at the top of the list since 2022 with its Frontier supercomputer, to the chagrin of Intel. This ranking has a new number one, but it also comes from AMD.

AMD’s new champion is called El Capitan. This supercomputer lives up to its name: the system features almost 45,000 AMD MI300A accelerators and has a total of more than eleven million cores. El Capitan has a theoretical peak of 2.7 exaflops. In practice, a peak value of 1.7 exaflops has already been achieved, which surpasses Frontier (1.3 exaflops).

El Capitan’s rapid rise is bad news for Intel, which now drops to third place with its Aurora. Aurora had to dethrone Frontier, but so far she hasn’t succeeded. With a peak of 1.01 exaflops achieved, Intel needs to step up more than a notch if it wants to approach first Frontier and then El Capitan. For now, AMD rules in supercomputer land.

HPE

AMD may be ahead, but HPE also has reasons to dominate the rankings. HPE is the silent force behind the fastest supercomputers. Many of the top ten fastest systems feature HPE Cray technology. The entire top 3 comes from HPE, which claims to be the only company in the world that can have three exascale computers.

HPE also highlights its presence in European supercomputing. Although El Capitan, Frontier and Aurora were born and raised in the United States, there are many European supercomputers in the top ten.

Eni’s HPC6 (Italy) appeared in the Top500 for the first time with a debut at number 5, making it the most powerful enterprise supercomputer in the world. HPE is also responsible for places seven and eight in the ranking. This is the Swiss supercomputer Alps or Lumi from Finland.