HPE Delivers Aurora Supercomputer to Argonne National Lab, USA

At the ISC High Performance 2024 event, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced the delivery of an exascale supercomputer named Aurora to the United States Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. This project was completed in collaboration with Intel. 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a company involved in the supercomputing industry, has now delivered two exascale systems, with Aurora being the latest. Aurora is reportedly recognized for its AI processing capabilities, according to the HPL Mixed Precision Benchmark. The delivery of Aurora is an important step.

Trish Damkroger, senior vice president and general manager, of HPC & AI Infrastructure Solutions at HPE said, “We have a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, and Intel to realize a system of this scale and magnitude that was made possible through our joint innovative engineering, multiple teams, and most importantly, shared value of delivering technology to fuel science and benefit humankind.”

The Aurora system utilizes the HPE Cray EX supercomputer architecture, designed for exascale computing. It features the HPE Slingshot, an open, Ethernet-based supercomputing interconnect and the largest on a single system. 

This network interconnects Aurora’s numerous compute nodes, storage, service network endpoints, and switches. Aurora comprises a substantial number of compute blades, Intel Xeon CPU Max Series processors, and Intel Data Center GPU Max units, forming one of the largest GPU clusters.

Aurora was conceived as a system capable of artificial intelligence tasks. Researchers can utilize generative AI models on Aurora to expedite scientific breakthroughs. Some of the initial AI research conducted on Aurora includes brain mapping, high-energy particle physics, and drug design and discovery.

Rick Stevens, an associate laboratory director at Argonne National Laboratory, stated that Aurora is a supercomputer expected to impact research. The development of this second exascale system in the U.S. is seen as a pivotal moment for global open science initiatives.

The creation of the Aurora exascale supercomputer is a collaborative effort involving HPE, Intel, the U.S. Department of Energy, and Argonne National Laboratory. This partnership, which involves shared investment and development, is aimed at producing engineering solutions to further scientific research.

The collaboration is exemplified by the Aurora Early Science Program, which has already seen a variety of programming models, languages, and applications being successfully tested on the system.

“The Aurora supercomputer was designed to support the research and science communities within the HPC and AI space,” said Ogi Brkic, Intel vice president and general manager, of Data Center AI Solutions. “Our ongoing collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory and HPE. Let's see as we continue to optimize system performance to accelerate the science and march toward what is next.” 

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