Aurora Exascale Supercomputer (ALCF)

The story

Situated 25 miles southwest of Chicago at Argonne National Laboratory, Aurora was commissioned by the US Department of Energy to tackle complex scientific simulations and AI research. Spanning 166 liquid-cooled HPE Cray EX cabinets, Aurora is powered by 63,744 Intel Max Series GPUs and 21,248 Xeon Max CPUs with on-package high-bandwidth memory. In 2024 Aurora officially surpassed 1 exaflop on the Top500 benchmark. Its liquid-cooling plant circulates 44,000 gallons of chilled water, enabling researchers to run AI-driven molecular dynamics and cosmic structure simulations.

Notable

• Achieved 1.012 exaflops on the Top500 Linpack list in May 2024, becoming the world's second verified exascale system.
• Contains 63,744 Intel Data Center Max GPUs (Ponte Vecchio) and 21,248 Intel Xeon Max CPUs across 166 racks.
• Occupies a space equal to two basketball courts and weighs 600 tons at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.
• Broader scientific mission focuses on cancer drug modeling, cosmology simulations, and materials discovery.

Expansions

• 2019: DOE and Intel announce 1 exaflop Aurora supercomputer contract for Argonne
• 2023: system installation completed with 166 liquid-cooled HPE Cray EX cabinets
• 2024: breaks exascale barrier on Top500 with 1.012 exaflops sustained performance