South Korea Unveils Supercomputer Powered by 8,496 Chips

South Korea has introduced Hangan, its sixth national supercomputer, which is 24 times more powerful than its predecessor, Nurion. The previous system had been in operation since 2018 and supported 1,730 research projects.

The new supercomputer is equipped with 8,496 GH2 accelerators manufactured by NVIDIA. It has a theoretical peak performance of 614.7 petaflops, equivalent to 614.7 quadrillion operations per second. However, in the TOP500 benchmark, Hangan recorded a performance of 342.6 petaflops, securing 12th place in the global rankings.

Full access to the new system is scheduled to begin on December 14. Its computing resources will be allocated as follows: 55 percent to scientific research, 30 percent to national projects and 15 percent to industrial applications.

South Korea plans to connect an IonQ Tempo quantum computer to Hangan in 2027, creating a hybrid computing system. Under the proposed arrangement, the quantum computer will be used to identify proteins relevant to drug development, while Hangan will calculate the energy requirements associated with the process.

The delivery of equipment for Hangan was delayed by a sharp increase in demand and prices for graphics processing units (GPUs) amid the artificial intelligence boom. Although the project passed its economic feasibility assessment in 2022, initial attempts to procure the required equipment were unsuccessful.

Consequently, project officials were forced to revise their plans to accommodate researchers' changing requirements.

South Korea also intends to develop its own technologies for building similar computing systems. However, the country currently lacks the necessary manufacturing and technological infrastructure, forcing it to rely on foreign-made accelerators for its new supercomputer.