Fujitsu Begins Production of Post-K

Also advances productization of commercial units based on the supercomputer technology

Tokyo, April 15, 2019 -- Fujitsu Limited today announced that, working with RIKEN, it has completed the design of Post-K, the successor to the K supercomputer. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) is aiming to start the public service of Post-K around 2021 or 2022. Fujitsu has now concluded an official contract with RIKEN to manufacture, ship, and install hardware for Post-K. In addition, Fujitsu will productize a commercial supercomputer using technology created in the Post-K development process, and plans to begin global sales in the second half of fiscal 2019.

The company's efforts in the development of Post-K will be exhibited at Fujitsu Forum 2019, to be held on May 17 at the Tokyo International Forum in Japan.

Background

Since 2006, Fujitsu and RIKEN have jointly developed the K computer, aiming to start public service in 2012. The K computer to this day offers world class performance in major performance metrics that show the practical usefulness of supercomputers, serving as an indispensable research and development platform for cutting-edge research.

Post-K is the successor to the K computer, and it is expected to serve as both a cutting-edge research and development platform for solving a variety of social and scientific issues. As a major platform, Post-K will also support the creation of "Society 5.0"⁽¹⁾, the Japanese government's vision for an ideal future society.

Fujitsu and RIKEN began basic design work in October 2014, and followed by the advancement of system prototypes and detailed design work while conducting co-design with application developers from a variety of fields.

About the Start of Production

At a meeting of the Council for Science, Technology, and Innovation held on November 22, 2018, it was reported that, based on an interim evaluation of the development of Post-K, the project was expected to meet its development goals. Accordingly, the Council judged that it was appropriate to steadily move forward with production and installation based on the results of the system design process.

As a result, Fujitsu and RIKEN have now signed an official contract to begin production of hardware for Post-K, and then proceed to shipment and installation. The production of hardware for Post-K will be conducted by Fujitsu IT Products Limited, Fujitsu's key computer system plant, and the hardware will be installed in the RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS), where the K computer is currently located.

Features of Post-K

Post-K will be equipped with A64FX™, a high-performance CPU developed by Fujitsu, and the new system will support a wide range of software due to its use of the Arm instruction set architecture, while offering features such as high parallelization, extremely low power consumption, and mainframe-class levels of reliability.

Moreover, as part of the development and production of this hardware in addition to the development of software, Fujitsu will work with open source communities. For example, the company will promote the Arm ecosystem, utilize open source software with Post-K, and apply the results obtained with the supercomputer.

Future Plans

Fujitsu will promote the development and deployment of the system in preparation for Post-K to start public service. Moreover, utilizing the technologies created through the development of Post-K, Fujitsu will productize the commercial supercomputer, and plans to begin global sales as the successor to the Fujitsu Supercomputer PRIMEHPC FX100 in the second half of fiscal 2019. In order to implement these technologies more broadly, Fujitsu is also considering measures such as developing an entry-level model that will be easy to deploy, or supplying these technologies to other vendors.

CPU	Name	A64FX™
	Instruction set architecture	Armv8.2-A SVE
	Number of cores	Computational node: 48 cores + 2 assistant cores I/O and computation node: 48 cores + 4 assistant cores
	Theoretical computational performance	Over 2.7 TFLOPS (double precision)
Nodes	Architecture	1 CPU/node
	Memory capacity	32 GB (HBM2, 4 stacks)
	Memory bandwidth	1,024 GB/s
	Interconnects	Tofu Interconnect D
Racks	Maximum number of nodes	384 nodes/rack
Software	OS	Linux
	HPC middleware	A successor to the Fujitsu Software Technical Computing Suite

*As the product is still in development, specifications and other information are subject to change without notice.

Going forward, Fujitsu will continue to contribute to the development and utilization of technologies such as computational science, simulations, data utilization, and AI, by developing and delivering high performance supercomputers.

Comment by Brent Gorda, senior director of HPC, Arm

"Arm's successful collaboration with Fujitsu and RIKEN underscores our commitment to the HPC ecosystem. Reaching the production milestone marks a significant achievement for Post-K and we are excited to see the potential for broader deployment of Arm-based Fujitsu technologies in support of HPC and AI applications. We congratulate Fujitsu and RIKEN for their outstanding work in delivering Post-K."

Related Links

RIKEN Center for Computational Science

[1] Society 5.0

A human-centric society that balances economic development and the resolution of issues in society through systems that blend cyberspace (virtual space) and physical space (the real world) at a high level.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions, and services. Approximately 140,000 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 4.1 trillion yen (US $39 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.