China unveils its newest supercomputer with 384-core processor
China has unveiled the latest supercomputer running on a new processor with 384 cores. Its performance is over 13 Tflops.
Sunway’s SW26010 Pro processor is a self-developed chip that aims to increase China’s supercomputing capabilities and reduce its dependence on foreign technologies. However, experts say the processor still faces cache performance issues.
This processor was recently unveiled at the SC23 conference and is an upgraded version of the Sunway SW26010 used in the Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer, which became the world’s fastest supercomputer in 2016 and 2017. The new processor has improved clock speed, system architecture, and memory bandwidth compared to the previous generation, which has resulted in a fourfold increase in performance. The Sunway SW26010 Pro processor can reach a peak FP64 performance of 13.8 Tflops, which is really impressive. For comparison, the 96-core AMD EPYC 9654 processor has a peak performance of about 5.4 Tflops.
However, it also has its drawbacks. The processor has a limited cache hierarchy, which can affect performance for some applications. The processor memory subsystem is also insufficient and needs to be increased to support the high throughput of 384 cores. These bottlenecks can limit the scalability and efficiency of the processor and supercomputer.
The Sunway SW26010 Pro processor is a significant achievement for the Chinese supercomputing industry, which is developing its processors and systems to compete with world leaders. The processor demonstrates China’s innovations in high-performance computing, which are used in scientific research, national security, and artificial intelligence. But the processor shows that China still has gaps in memory design that are critical to achieving optimal performance and power efficiency. The Sunway SW26010 Pro CPU is a powerful processor, but it is still not enough to guarantee China’s superiority in supercomputing.
