The RIKEN Center for Computational Science in Japan has introduced a virtual version of its Fugaku supercomputer, now available on the AWS cloud platform. As reported by The Register, Fugaku was the world’s most powerful supercomputer in 2020 until it was surpassed by the exaflop machine Frontier in 2022.
RIKEN aims to make Fugaku’s computational power more accessible by creating a virtual replica that can run on cloud infrastructure or other companies’ supercomputers. This virtual instance fully replicates Fugaku’s HPC software ecosystem, including Arm-optimized packages and specialized software.
The first version of Virtual Fugaku is available as a Singularity image and is designed for Amazon Graviton3E Arm processors, optimized for HPC and AI tasks. These processors, like the Fujitsu A64FX used in Fugaku, support Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) instructions. The virtual system operates on RHEL 8.10 and utilizes GCC 14.1 along with the OpenMPI library with EFA support. Amazon has expressed strong satisfaction with AWS as the base platform for Virtual Fugaku.
Future plans may include porting Virtual Fugaku to other architectures, but RIKEN hopes the virtual instances will continue the legacy of the original Fugaku. The supercomputer has been instrumental in various research areas, including disease control and new materials development. RIKEN intends to share its extensive experience with the global community.
RIKEN envisions Virtual Fugaku as a potential standard platform for HPC software solutions. If adopted by supercomputing centers worldwide, users could benefit from an extensive library of software. However, some experts believe that a one-size-fits-all software platform may not be suitable for all HPC tasks, which often require hardware tailored to specific needs.
