Related Papers

A novel representation of Top500 data is proposed, where the systems are plotted in rank and number-of-processors coordinates. This rendering brings to light various trends, such as complete Japanese domination of the range of high rank achieved with a small number of processors. In addition, an evolutionary trend whereby the rank of a given machine doubles every year is identified. This in turn leads to a characterization of the distribution of computing power across the whole list.

The Top500 list lists the 500 most powerful computers installed worldwide, and has been updated semiannually for the last 10 years. Analyzing this data enables an impartial analysis of the current state and the development trends of the supercomputer industry, and sheds some light on the challenges which it faces.

The Top500 list lists the 500 most powerful computers installed worldwide, and has been updated semiannually for the last 10 years. Analyzing this data enables an impartial assessment of the supercomputer industry and the challenges which it faces.

Since 1993 we compile and publish twice a year a list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. In this article we analyse some major trends in High-Performance Computing (HPC) based on the quantitative data gathered over the years in this TOP500 project (see www.top500.org for a complete access to all data). We start with an overview of the project, including the motivation and rationale behind it. We present the results of the TOP500 project as of November 2002 focusing on the changes over time with respect to the performance levels, the overall dynamics in this market, the manufacturers active in this market-segment, the architectures, and technologies used for these systems, and the major centers using such systems.

In the last 50 years, the field of scientific computing has seen rapid, sweeping changes—in vendors, in architectures, in technologies, and in the users and uses of high-performance computer systems. The evolution of performance over the same 50-year period, however, seems to have been a very steady and continuous process.

Trends inferred from the fastest supercomputers lists for the last 13 years indicate that
aggregating the computational power of relatively small machines is becoming
increasingly rewarding. It is thus no coincidence that Grid computing, which provides the
infrastructure to build these controlled, secure resource aggregations, continues to attract
increasing interest.

Hans Meuer looks back over 15 years of supercomputing experience starting with the Mannheim supercomputing statistics in 1986 and then moving forward with the TOP500 project, launched in 1993. Twice a year, a list of the sites operating the world’s 500 most powerful computer systems is compiled and released. The best performance on the Linpack benchmark is used as the measurement for ranking the computer systems.