(This section was contributed by Ad Emmen)
The TOP500 lists all the machines according to their performance. A number of these machines are placed in centres,which house more than one supercomputer. To see the relative importance of these centres, we have compiled the list of European Supercomputer centres given in Figure 1. As a centre we did also count two or more sites linked by fast networks and run as one entity.
The supercomputer centres in the list are ordered according to the total
performance each centre has installed. Only the machines in the TOP500
are counted. This results for a few centres in a lower rate than last
year, despite nothing has changed in their configuration. Because of the
small differences in in most of this list, this even can result in a
lower postion than would have been the case if also machines with lower
ratings than the lowest in the TOP500 were counted. This is also a
warning to treat this list with care: it is to be used as an indication of
the importance of the centres, not as an absolute thruth.
None of the European centres is big enough to make it into the World TOP25 centre list (see elsewere in this issue). This shows, in Europe, the large machines in the centres play more the role as very high-end production facilties than of sheer research tools. Another factor is the absence of a large European supercomputer vendor. In Japan and the U.S. they play a stimulating role in trying to get some very large machines installed.
This year, the TOP25 centres house a total of 43 TOP500 machines, which is less than last year. The average of less than 2 machines per centre, is considerably lower than for the TOP25 World Centres This corresponds to 30% of all installed machines in Europe. The installed power is 426.4 Gflop/s, 51% of the installed European power. A sharp decrease from last year's 62%.
The research oriented centres are still dominant with 11 out of the 25. Academic centres are well presented with 8.5 and industry is gaining importance with 2.5 Two centres are classified and one belongs to a vendor. The combined RUS/debis Systemhaus/Porsche centre shows an example of the new, close collaboration between industry and a university.
Compared to last year, we see considerable changes in the list. About half of the centres are new to the list, showing the fierce competition.The first two positions remained unchanged, however, with EPPC at the University of Edinburgh still on Position 1.
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TOP25 European Centers
Nr. Centre (Gflop/s Field # Top500 Machines
1 (1) University of Edinburgh (UK) 31.7 Academic 23 Cray T3D MC320-8
2 (2) ECMWF (UK) 26.5 Research 67 Cray Y-MP C916/16256 93 Cray T3D MCA128-8
3 (-) Defense Research Agency (UK) 25.3 Classified 33 Cray T3D MC256-8
4 (7) Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Switzerland) 25.3 Academic 35 Cray T3D MC256-8
5 (-) ZIB/Konrad Zuse-Zentrum fuer Informationstechnik 25.3 Academic 38 Cray T3D SC256-8/464
6 (10) German Aerospace Laboratory, DLR Goettingen/Koeln (Germany) 22.3 Research 105 NEC SX-3/24R 112 IBM SP2/60
7 (6) CEA/Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires Grenoble (France) 21.7 Research 91 Cray T3D MCA128-8 365 Cray Y-MP C94/4256 436 SGI Power Challenge 437 SGI Power Challenge
8 (-) ETH Zurich (Switzerland) 18.7 Academic 46 Intel XP/S-MP 22
9 (15) RUS/debis Systemhaus Stuttgart (Germany) 17. Academic/Industry 257 Y-MP T94/3128 375 Cray Y-MP C94/41024 376 Cray Y-MP C94/4256 388 Cray T3D MC32-8 459 SGI/SNI Power Challenge
10 (-) SARA (The Netherlands) 16.8 Academic 87 IBM SP2/76 373 Cray Y-MP C98/4256
11 (-) Silicon Graphics (Switzerland) 15.6 Vendor 50 SGI Power Challenge
12 (5) CEA/Centre d'Etudes Limeil/Bordeaux (France) 15.4 Research 90 Cray T3D MC128-8 487 IBM SP2/14
13 (22) ONERA (France) 14.9 Research 101 Intel XP/S-MP 15 498 Intel iPSC/860
14 (3) CERN (Switzerland) 14.4 Research 104 IBM SP2/65 484 Meiko CS-2/32
15 (-) UNI*C Aarhus/Lyngby (Denmark) 14.3 Academic 155 IBM SP2/40 325 SGI Power Challenge 345 SGI Power Challenge
16 (9) DKRZ (Germany) 13.7 Research 62 Cray Y-MP C916/16256
17 (4) Government Communications Headquarters (UK) 13.7 Classified 75 Cray Y-MP C916/16256
18 (8) United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UK) 13.7 Research 85 Cray Y-MP C916/16256
19 (-) Max-Planck MPI Muenchen(Germany) 12.8 Research 95 Cray T3D MC128-8
20 (16) Leibniz Rechenzentrum (Germany) 12.5 Academic 100 IBM SP2/70
21 (-) CINECA (Italy) 12.2 Research 165 Cray T3D MC64-8 178 IBM SP2/32
22 (11) Swiss Scientific Computing Center (Switzerland) 11.6 Research 107 NEC SX-3/24R
23 (-) VW (Germany) 11.6 Industry 108 NEC SX-3/24R
24 (-) CSC: Center for Scientific Computing (Finland) 11.4 Academic 246 IBM SP2/24 311 SGI Power Onyx 366 Cray Y-MP C94/4256
25(-) Shell KSEPL (The Netherlands) 10.9 Industry 206 IBM SP2/30 207 IBM SP2/30
Figure 1. The TOP25 European supercomputer centres, measured in installed performance.