What simply occurred? At final week’s ActivateNow: Technology Summit on the Computer History Museum in California, a Fujitsu consultant caught the eye of some viewers by casually mentioning an upcoming 2027 Arm-based CPU. The Register pressed the corporate for extra particulars and realized that it’s creating a successor to the A64FX, code-named Monaka.
Fujitsu launched its first Arm-based high-performance computing (HPC) CPU in 2019. The bluntly named A64FX has 48 processor cores clocked at round 2GHz and 4 further auxiliary cores. It has 32 GB of onboard HBM2 and extra HPC capabilities, together with 512-bit Scalable Vector Extensions (SVE). Nearly 160,000 A64FXs energy the Fugaku supercomputer, which might be changed by the Epyc-powered Frontier because the world’s quickest supercomputer from 2020 to 2022.
A spokesperson instructed The Register that the Monaka “may have a wider vary of options and can show to be extra energy environment friendly” than the A64FX. “The vary of potential purposes is wider than that of the A64FX, which has particular options (corresponding to interconnects) distinctive to Fugaku.” Some of those options embrace the Tofu interconnect D-structure and a reminiscence restrict of 32 GB, which can’t be expanded.
Energy effectivity was a high precedence in Monaka’s design. In its supplies, Fujitsu emphasizes that its “overwhelming vitality effectivity” will “contribute to the belief of a carbon-neutral and sustainable society”. The firm expects the CPU to be not less than 70 % quicker than its rivals in AI and HPC workloads, whereas being twice as environment friendly.
Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) is encouraging and supporting Fujitsu’s efforts to develop extra energy-efficient processors as a part of its plan to scale back vitality consumption in Japan’s information facilities by 40% by 2030. Fujitsu can be engaged on the co-development of different energy-saving applied sciences as a part of this system, together with low-power accelerators and photonics-based community interface controllers (NICs).
Arm-based processors are proving to be a preferred selection in international locations that encourage sustainable growth. Arm processors are inherently extra environment friendly than x86 alternate options, and Amazon, Google, and Nvidia are all investing of their HPC workload purposes proper now.
