Starting Signal for Germany's Fastest Supercomputer

The new SuperMUC-NG supercomputer went into operation at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. SuperMUC-NG is the fastest computer in Germany and one of the fastest in the world.

The computer follows Super-MUC as the "Next Generation", which went into operation in 2012 and was expanded in 2015. It opens up new opportunities for science and paves the way for the development of a quantum computer. "As early as 2019, we will set up a Future Computing research group at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ). This will create an important foundation for the success of future generations," said Bavaria's Minister President Söder at the official launch of the SuperMUC-NG.

SuperMUC-NG is currently the fastest computer in Germany with a peak computing performance of 26.7 PFlop/s (26,700,000,000,000,000 floating point operations per second). More than 300,000 computing cores with 700 TByte main memory and 70 PByte disk storage will open up completely new possibilities for numerical simulation and make it possible to cope with the huge amounts of data ("big data") that are increasingly generated by experiments and simulations. All researchers who have used the predecessor SuperMUC down to the last processor in recent years will in future have a much more powerful research device at their disposal. It is possible to develop a deeper understanding of the evolution of our universe or the interior of the Earth using the computing power of SuperMUC-NG. The supercomputer will also be able to deliver valuable results in the medical field: It enables more precise simulations of blood flow in aneurysms, air flow in the lungs, or the effect of drugs.

100 % of the electricity used  for SuperMUC-NG as  for SuperMUC, is generatedby renewable energies and cooled with hot water. The waste heat from the system is used to heat buildings and generate cooling by means of adsorption chillers. The LRZ is the world leader in the energy-efficient operation of supercomputers and has received several awards for its performance.

Like its predecessor, SuperMUC-NG is jointly financed by the Free State of Bavaria and the Federal Government through the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS). "With SuperMUC-NG, we will once again provide the best possible computing performance for science in Bavaria, Germany and Europe," emphasizes Prof. Dr. Dieter Kranzlmüller, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the LRZ.