National Supercomputer 'Saturated' in the AI Era... Introducing the 6th Unit, 3 Times More Expensive [Reading Science]

Introduction of Unit 1 in 1988, Research Institutes-Universities-Companies Working 365 Days
Old Units 1-4 Distributed Parts and Disposed
Unit 5 Introduced in 2018 'Saturated'
Unit 6 with World Top 5-10 Performance to be Established by Next Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] The history of South Korea's national supercomputers began with the introduction of the first unit in 1988. The institutional foundation was established based on the "Act on the Utilization and Promotion of National Ultra-High Performance Computers," which came into effect on December 8, 2011. According to this law, the Ministry of Science and ICT prepares and implements comprehensive policies necessary for the promotion and development of national ultra-high performance computing. The National Ultra-High Performance Computing Committee and its working committee, chaired by the Minister of Science and ICT, are organized, and a basic plan for the promotion of national ultra-high performance computing is formulated every five years. The law also mandates the establishment of a promotion system to implement the act, including the National Ultra-High Performance Computing Center and specialized centers.

◇Who uses it and how?

The management of national supercomputers introduced from units 1 to 5 is handled by the National Supercomputing Center under the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI). The currently operating 5th unit is installed at KISTI's headquarters in Daejeon. The users include about 30 government-funded research institutes, around 80 universities, and approximately 50 industrial research institutes nationwide.

Use of national supercomputer resources is possible by submitting research topics and purposes three times a year, which are then reviewed by an evaluation committee composed of experts. Selected research institutions are allocated CPU usage time, and work schedules are managed through an integrated scheduler. A KISTI official explained, "The national supercomputer is part of the public research infrastructure," adding, "Authorized government-funded research institutes, universities, and industrial research institutes can access it at any time, so it can be considered to be constantly in operation."

◇Where do decommissioned supercomputers go?

National supercomputers are replaced approximately every five years due to rapid advances in computing technology. When decommissioned, the supercomputers are dismantled, and components such as CPUs and memory are distributed to research institutions that express interest. Through the National Research Equipment Management Organization, institutions wishing to receive these components are publicly recruited, and their qualifications and infrastructure conditions are reviewed before allocation. For units 1 to 4, about 10 institutions shared the equipment each time. Operating and managing supercomputer-level high-performance equipment requires space, electrical and cooling facilities, and management personnel, making it a challenging task.

◇Budget triples for the introduction of the 6th unit

The government recently decided to invest 292.9 billion KRW to build the 6th national supercomputer starting in 2023. This is more than three times the total cost of 90.8 billion KRW spent on purchasing the 5th unit. Even considering that each upgrade previously cost about 50% more than the previous one, this is a significant increase. The 5th unit (Nurion), built in 2018, is currently overloaded and insufficient to meet the rapidly growing demand in the AI field. Since its construction, Nurion's average utilization rate has been 73%, reaching an average of 85% and a maximum of 91% from October 2020 to March last year. As a result, the project support rate plummeted from 85% in 2016 to 51% last year. This means that research institutions requiring ultra-high-speed computing have not been able to use it in a timely manner. The government plans to introduce the 6th unit, a quasi-exascale system (600 petaflops) with world-class performance ranked 5th to 10th globally, starting in 2023 to respond to the rapidly increasing research demand for AI and big data utilization.

KISTI explained, "The research environment has rapidly changed to focus on deep learning-based simulations and artificial intelligence (AI), which require much more computing resources, making higher capacity and higher performance national supercomputers necessary," adding, "The role of supercomputers has expanded to include ultra-large-scale natural language processing system research, and the demand base has diversified."