Do you know where are the most powerful supercomputers located?

Whether you like it or not, technology is part of our day-to-day life. That's why it's important to keep an eye on the latest developments in the field.

The world of computing is constantly evolving at a breakneck pace, and sometimes it is hard to keep up with all the changes going on.

Computer scientists from the University of Tennessee, the National Energy Research Scientific Computer Center, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed TOP500, a ranking of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.

The TOP500 project is updated twice a year, and also includes parallel rankings focused on energy efficiency and I/O bandwidth.

The United States dominates the top 10 and, in fact, has more supercomputers than any country in the world.

All supercomputers on the list run on operating systems based on Linux. Even the Microsoft supercomputer uses Ubuntu, based on Linux.

Image: 6heinz3r / Unsplash

The NVIDIA Eos DGX SuperPOD is number 10 on the ranking. It’s the sum of 576 Nvidia DGX H100 systems and considered the world’s most advanced Enterprise AI infrastructure.

Number 9 is the Summit Supercomputer. Operated by IBM and located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Summit was the world’s most powerful supercomputer from November 2018 to June 2020.

Pictured: A street on Oak Ridge, Tennessee

In the 8th spot is MareNostrum, located in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, in Spain. Part of the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE), it provides human genome and protein research, weather forecasting, and the design of new medicine, among other things.

Italy’s Leonardo supercomputer hits the seventh spot. Located in at the Bologna Technopole, it was developed by the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, aiming at creating a supercomputer network across the EU.

Carried by the Swiss National Computer Center in Lugano, Alps debuts on this June 2024 list at the sixth spot.

Number 5 on the ranking is part of the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking: Finland’s Lumi was regarded as the most powerful supercomputer in Europe as of January 2024.

Japan’s Fugaku Supercomputer hits the fourth place of the list. Sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Technology, it is operated by Riken Institute, one of Japan’s premier research and development institutions, in their Kobe center.

Number 3 is Microsoft’s Azure Eagle. Unlike the other two above on the ranking, this 1,123,200-core supercomputer is available to developers through the Azure cloud platform.

The silver medal goes to Aurora, designed by Intel and Cray for the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and co-operated by the US Department of Energy. Functions include research on nuclear fusion, low carbon technologies, and subatomic particles.

Pictured: Barack Obama visiting Argonne in 2013.

At the top of the list is Hewlett Packard’s Pioneer supercomputer. Located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Pioneer is the world’s first exascale computer, capable of doing 1.102 quintillion operations per second.

Pictured: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

However, the speed of technological development is always constant. So who knows what other computing innovations we will be seeing around the corner?