Redazione RHC : 19 September 2025 10:52
The supercomputer “Fugaku,” developed by Fujitsu in collaboration with the RIKEN Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, dominated the rankings of the world’s fastest machines for years thanks to its ARM architecture. Its supremacy, however, was broken by a new player: “Frontier.”
“Frontier” has claimed the title of fastest supercomputer, returning the x86 architecture to the top after Fugaku’s long dominance. This achievement represents a significant shift in the landscape of high-performance computing systems.
The machine uses AMD’s third-generation EPYC server processors, codenamed “Milan, coupled with the Instinct MI250X accelerated graphics card, designed with an OCP accelerator module. The combination of these technologies has enabled unprecedented performance.
The system is based on the HPE Cray EX235a, consisting of 220 compute nodes for a total of 8.73 million cores. It also features 128 GB of high-density HBM2e ECC memory, which enhances its operational capabilities and ensures processing stability.
Thanks to this architecture, “Frontier” is the first supercomputer to consistently exceed the exaflop threshold. Its effective power is 1.102 ExaFLOPS, a value that places it significantly above Fugaku, which stands at 442.01 PFLOPS.
In the international panorama, the supercomputer “LUMI“, from the Finnish Centre for Computer Science, reached third place and became the fastest in Europe. “Adastra,” a system shared between French institutions, also stood out, entering the top ten in tenth place and establishing itself as the second-fastest in Europe.
Looking ahead, Intel plans to launch the next-generation Xeon Scalable processor, codenamed “Sapphire Rapids,” along with the “Ponte Vecchio” graphics card. These technologies will be the basis for “Aurora,” the supercomputer under development at Argonne National Laboratory in the United States, which is set to shake up the world rankings once again.
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