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K computer Recognized in Class 1 and 2 of the HPC Challenge Awards

Top honors awarded for productivity in a high-performance supercomputer parallel programming language implementation (a first for Japan) and overall performance

RIKEN,University of Tsukuba,Fujitsu Limited

Tokyo and Tsukuba, Japan, November 22, 2013

RIKEN, the University of Tsukuba and Fujitsu today announced that they were recognized in the 2013 HPC Challenge Awards. RIKEN and the University of Tsukuba received the prize in the HPC Challenge⁽¹⁾ Class 2 Awards, which recognize the overall performance of a programming language. This recognition is based on performance results measured using the K computer⁽²⁾ for implementations of the high-performance supercomputer parallel programming language XcalableMP⁽³⁾, which was jointly developed by RIKEN and the University of Tsukuba. This is the first time a Japanese organization has received the award.

Furthermore, RIKEN, the University of Tsukuba, and Fujitsu received top ranks in three of the four benchmarks at the 2013 HPC Challenge Class 1 Awards for the performance of the K computer. The first-place rankings were received in the following three benchmarks⁽⁴⁾ used for evaluating the all-around performance of a supercomputer: (1) Global HPL, which measures the floating point rate of execution for solving a linear system of equations; (2) EP STREAM (Triad) per system, which measures sustainable memory bandwidth and the corresponding computation rate for simple vector kernels; and (3) Global FFT, which measures the floating point rate of execution of double precision complex one-dimensional Discrete Fourier Transform.

With this, the K computer ranked first, for the third consecutive year from 2011 to 2013, in the HPC Challenge Class 1 Awards. The awards were announced on November 21, 2013 in Denver, Colorado at SC13, the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis.

The HPC Challenge benchmarks are benchmark programs designed to evaluate the overall performance of supercomputers in terms of processing performance in 28 tests derived from frequently used computational patterns in the field of scientific computation. There are two classes of awards: Class 1, which measures benchmark performance values, and Class 2, which measures the productivity of programming language implementations.

The HPC Challenge Class 2 Award, the first to be received by a Japanese organization, is a contest for programming languages used in developing HPC applications. Among the 28 tests mentioned above, the award is designed to evaluate both programming language productivity and performance for four HPC Challenge benchmarks: Global HPL, which measures the floating point rate of execution for solving a linear system of equations; Global RandomAccess, which measures random memory access performance in parallel processing; EP STREAM (Triad) per system, which measures memory access speed under multiple loads; and Global FFT, which measures total performance of Fast Fourier Transform. Participants can also choose to include up to two additional benchmarks besides the HPC Challenge benchmarks for consideration, and the award is determined based on the total score for the implementations including the additional benchmarks.

The award-winning XcalableMP is a programming language that was jointly developed by the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science and the University of Tsukuba's Center for Computational Sciences. The HPC Challenge benchmarks and the Himeno benchmark⁽⁵⁾ are the benchmarks that were implemented. The performance results of each of these benchmarks on K computer demonstrated that implementations using XcalableMP exhibit extremely high performance.

Programming languages that can be used to develop highly productive, high-speed applications that run on large-scale computation environments - such as K computer - make it possible to accelerate the pace of research. As a result, they are highly desirable by researchers both inside and outside Japan. The awards reveal both the high productivity and high performance of XcalableMP, in addition to demonstrating the substantial effectiveness of XcalableMP for developing HPC applications.

The K computer, which was developed jointly by RIKEN and Fujitsu as a part of the High-Performance Computing Infrastructure (HPCI) initiative led by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), was opened to shared use in September 2012. The University of Tsukuba contributed extensively to increasing the computational speed for the Global FFT benchmark.

The top three rankings achieved on the four benchmarks for the HPC Challenge Class 1 Awards for 2013 are as follows:

Top Three Rankings of Four Benchmarks for HPC Challenge Class 1 Awards 2013
Global HPL	Performance (TFLOP/s)	System	Institutional Facility
1^st place	9,796	K computer	RIKEN
1^st runner up	1,534	Cray XT5	ORNL
2^nd runner up	1,344	IBM Power 775	IBM Development Engineering
Global RandomAccess	Performance (GUPS)	System	Institutional Facility
1^st place	2,021	IBM Power 775	IBM Development Engineering
1^st runner up	472	K computer	RIKEN
2^nd runner up	117	IBM BG/P	LLNL
EP STREAM (Triad) per system	Performance (TB/s)	System	Institutional Facility
1^st place	3,857	K computer	RIKEN
1^st runner up	525	IBM Power 775	IBM Development Engineering
2^nd runner up	398	Cray XT5	ORNL
Global FFT	Performance (TFLOP/s)	System	Institutional Facility
1^st place	206	K computer	RIKEN
1^st runner up	133	IBM Power 775	IBM Development Engineering
2^nd runner up	12	NEC SX-9	JAMSTEC

For more information:

[1] HPC Challenge Awards

The HPC Challenge benchmarks are benchmark programs designed to evaluate the overall performance of supercomputers in terms of processing performance in 28 tests derived from frequently used computational patterns in the field of scientific computation. The HPC Challenge Awards are evaluated based on the HPC Challenge benchmarks. There are two classes of awards: Class 1, which measures benchmark performance values, and Class 2, which measures the productivity of programming language implementations. The Class 1 awards consist of the following four benchmarks, each of which evaluates the performance of key system components (CPU computational performance, memory access performance, network transmission performance).- Global HPL: operating speed in solving large-scale simultaneous linear equations- Global RandomAccess: random memory access performance in parallel processing- EP STREAM (Triad) per system: memory access speed under multiple loads- Global FFT: total performance of Fast Fourier TransformHPC Challenge Class 2 Awards are given to programming languages used for developing HPC applications. Three benchmarks are selected from the four used in the Class 1 category, and both the productivity of the programming language and benchmark performance are evaluated for the implementation of these benchmarks. In addition, participants can also choose to include up to two additional benchmarks besides the HPC Challenge benchmarks for consideration, and the award is determined based on the total score for the implementations including the additional benchmarks.
[2] K computer

The K computer, which was jointly developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu, is part of the High-Performance Computing Infrastructure (HPCI) initiative led by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The K computer's availability for shared use began in September 2012. The "K" in K computer comes from the Japanese Kanji character "Kei" which means ten peta or 10 to the 16th power. In its original sense, "Kei" expresses a large gateway, and it is hoped that the system will be a new gateway to computational science.
[3] XcalableMP

A programming language that facilitates the development of parallel applications that run on supercomputers and other large-scale computational environments. With XcalableMP, it is possible to develop parallel applications that can achieve the same computational speeds as existing methods while using comparatively shorter code. http://www.xcalablemp.org/
[4] Benchmark

A standard used to evaluate the operation speed of computer hardware and software.
[5] Himeno benchmark

A benchmark program to evaluate the performance of incompressible fluid analysis code. Developed by Dr. Ryutaro Himeno, Director of RIKEN's Advanced Center for Computing and Communication.

About RIKEN

RIKEN is Japan's flagship research institute devoted to basic and applied research. Over 2500 papers by RIKEN researchers are published every year in reputable scientific and technical journals, covering topics ranging across a broad spectrum of disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, medical science and engineering. RIKEN's advanced research environment and strong emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration has earned itself an unparalleled reputation for scientific excellence in Japan and around the world. For more information, please see: http://www.riken.jp/.

About University of Tsukuba

The University of Tsukuba aims to establish free exchange and close relationship in both basic and applied sciences with educational and research organizations and academic communities in Japan and overseas. The university makes a contribution to the world through its educational system that seeks to make the most of students' creativity and individuality http://www.tsukuba.ac.jp/english/ http://www.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp/CCS/eng/

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 170,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.4 trillion yen (US$47 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013. For more information, please see http://www.fujitsu.com.

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All company or product names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Information provided in this press release is accurate at time of publication and is subject to change without advance notice.

Date: 22 November, 2013
City: Tokyo and Tsukuba, Japan
Company: RIKEN, , University of Tsukuba, , Fujitsu Limited, , , , , , , , ,

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