The University of Tokyo is preparing to deploy a heterogeneous computing system, called “Wisteria/BDEC-01,” that will tackle simulation and big data “learning” workloads, in support of Japan’s Society 5.0 project, which seeks to achieve economic and social gains through the integration of cyber and physical space.
The system comprises two partitions: a simulation node group, called Odyssey, and a data analysis node group, called Aquarius. The names reference call signs for the Apollo 13 command and lunar modules, respectively. Together the new computing systems provide an aggregate 33.1 peak double-precision petaflops; and the larger cluster, Odyssey, will be one of the world’s fastest Arm-based machines, second only to Top500 leader Fugaku.
Odyssey spans 20 Fujitsu PRIMEHPC FX1000 racks, equipped with a total of 7,680 nodes, each with one Fujitsu Arm-based 48-core “A64FX” CPU. The system delivers a total peak performance of 25.9 petaflops. With each node providing 32 GiB of HBM2 memory, Odyssey’s total memory capacity is 240 TiB, and the total memory bandwidth is 7.8 PB/sec. Nodes are connected by Fujitsu’s custom Tofu Interconnect D, with a bisection bandwidth of 13.0 TB/sec.
Aquarius is based on GPU-heavy Fujitsu PRIMERGY GX2570 servers. The system comprises 45 such nodes, each housing two Intel Ice Lake CPUs and eight Nvidia A100 GPUs, delivering a combined 7.2 petaflops of peak double-precision performance.
Nvidia Mellanox HDR 200 Gb/s InfiniBand ties the system together, employing full bisection bandwidth. The total system memory capacity is 36.5 TiB, and the total memory bandwidth is 578.2 TB/sec. A 25 GB/s Ethernet interface provides external connectivity at a data rate of 800 Gb/s.
A 100 Gbps EDR InfiniBand backbone connects Odyssey and Aquarius with 2 TB/sec of network bandwidth.
Wisteria/BDEC-01 leverages the Fujitsu Exabyte File System (FEFS), based on Lustre. There are actually two filesystems: the large shared filesystem (25.8 PB, 500 GB/s) and the high-speed NVMe filesystem (1 PB, 1 TB/s).
Japan’s Society 5.0 initiative is a purposeful effort to create a new social contract and economic model by fully incorporating the technological innovations of the fourth industrial revolution. It envisions embedding these innovations into every corner of its ageing society.
Underpinning this effort is a mandate for sustainability, bound tightly to the new United Nations global goals, the SDGs. Japan wants to create, in its own words, a “super-smart” society, and one that will serve as a road map for the rest of the world.
An earlier report notes that the Tokyo Tech Academy for SSS was established in December 2019 after the Institute’s “Engineering Education Program for Super Smart Society based on Advanced Quantum Science” was selected by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) as a Doctoral Program for World-leading Innovative & Smart Education (WISE).
The academy aims to develop professionals who can integrate physical space and cyberspace while combining cutting-edge technologies in fields such as quantum science and artificial intelligence, and as a result lead Society 5.0.
As the event progressed, Professor Nobuyuki Iwatsuki of the School of Engineering, who also serves as the chair of the Steering Committee at the SSS Promotion Consortium, introduced some of the innovative projects being conducted within the consortium.
The SSS Promotion Consortium, which functions as the collaborative foundation of the Tokyo Tech Academy for SSS, consists of partners from Japanese National Research and Development Agencies, private corporations, and municipal bodies.
Through a seamless, interdisciplinary academic program that spans the master’s and doctoral levels, the Tokyo Tech Academy for Super Smart Society develops professionals who can integrate physical space and cyberspace while combining cutting-edge technologies in fields such as quantum science and artificial intelligence.
