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MilkyWay-2 supercomputer: system and application

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Abstract

On June 17, 2013, MilkyWay-2 (Tianhe-2) supercomputer was crowned as the fastest supercomputer in the world on the 41th TOP500 list. This paper provides an overview of the MilkyWay-2 project and describes the design of hardware and software systems. The key architecture features of MilkyWay-2 are highlighted, including neo-heterogeneous compute nodes integrating commodity-off-the-shelf processors and accelerators that share similar instruction set architecture, powerful networks that employ proprietary interconnection chips to support the massively parallel message-passing communications, proprietary 16-core processor designed for scientific computing, efficient software stacks that provide high performance file system, emerging programming model for heterogeneous systems, and intelligent system administration. We perform extensive evaluation with wide-ranging applications from LINPACK and Graph500 benchmarks to massively parallel software deployed in the system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Science and Technology on Parallel and Distributed Processing Laboratory, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China

    Xiangke Liao & Canqun Yang

  2. College of Computer, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China

    Xiangke Liao, Liquan Xiao, Canqun Yang & Yutong Lu

Authors
  1. Xiangke Liao
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  2. Liquan Xiao
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  3. Canqun Yang
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  4. Yutong Lu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiangke Liao.

Additional information

Xiangke Liao received the BS in computer science from Tsinghua University, China and MS degree in computer science from the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), China. Currently he is a professor at NUDT. His research interests include high performance computing system, operating system, parallel software. He is the chief designer of MilkyWay-2 system.

Liquan Xiao received his MS and PhD in computer science from National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), China. Currently he is a professor at the university. His research interests include architecture of high performance computing, high speed interconnect network, system integration, and power management. He is a deputy chief designer of MilkyWay-2 supercomputer.

Canqun Yang received his MS and PhD in computer science from National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), China in 1995 and 2008, respectively. Currently he is a professor at the university. His research interests include programming languages and compiler implementation. He is a director designer of the MilkyWay-2 supercomputer.

Yutong Lu received her MS and PhD in computer science from National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), China. Currently she is a professor at the university. Her research interests include parallel system management, high speed communication, distributed file systems, and advanced programming environments with MPI. She is a director designer of MilkyWay-2 supercomputer.

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Liao, X., Xiao, L., Yang, C. et al. MilkyWay-2 supercomputer: system and application. Front. Comput. Sci. 8, 345–356 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-014-3501-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-014-3501-3

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