Supercharging weather forecasting: Fujitsu develops Taiwan’s fastest supercomputer

• Fujitsu is developing a supercomputer system for Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau (CWB), which will be the fastest supercomputer in Taiwan once completed.
• By using this new system, Taiwan will be able to achieve a safe and resilient society.

Supercomputers have played a vital role in advancing the field of weather forecasting. The fastest and first exascale supercomputer in the world, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Frontier, or OLCF-5, located at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) in Tennessee, is capable of performing 1.102 quintillion operations per second, making it well suited for complex weather modeling.

Similarly, Fujitsu has announced the development of a supercomputer system for Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau (CWB) for use in numerical weather predictions, which is set to become the fastest supercomputer in Taiwan with a theoretical peak performance of 10 PFLOPS.

Supercomputers can simulate the atmosphere and oceans more accurately than ever by using high-resolution models and large amounts of data. This feature allows for more accurate short-term forecasts and improved predictions of severe weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

Researchers in Taiwan are using supercomputers to simulate the effects of climate change on weather patterns. This is crucial for understanding the long-term impacts of these changes. Fujitsu’s new system for CWB started its operation in June 2022 under an initiative initially implemented in 2021. The program will be extended in stages over three years, and the final system will be completed in December 2023.

The state of supercomputer

Supercomputers have become an essential tool for various industries and research fields in Taiwan. Researchers in Taiwan use these powerful machines to perform complex simulations, analyze large sets of data, and conduct research in various fields such as weather forecasting, scientific research, and artificial intelligence. Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau (CWB) utilizes supercomputers to improve the accuracy of weather disaster forecasting and analysis and to observe and analyze the long-term effects of climate change.

The National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) in Taiwan has also developed one of the most powerful supercomputers in Asia, the Taiwania 2, which can perform over 1.4 exaflops. It is built using AMD EPYC processors and employs the GPI-Space interconnect technology. In 2019, they installed Taiwania 2; currently, they are using it for various applications such as scientific research, weather forecasting, and artificial intelligence.

Supercomputers like Taiwania 2 are crucial for advancing the field of weather forecasting. They can run high-resolution weather models and process large amounts of data, resulting in more accurate short-term forecasts and improved predictions of severe weather events. Supercomputers are also enabling researchers to simulate the effects of climate change on weather patterns, which is an essential step in understanding the long-term impacts of these changes.

This aligns with the trend of using supercomputers for accurate weather and climate-change forecasting. For example, Fujitsu Laboratories utilized the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Fugaku, to develop an AI model to predict tsunami flooding.

Similarly, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is developing a supercomputer, which will be installed at NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Centre in the U.S., to help study phenomena such as climate change and severe weather.

What is Fujitsu’s new development capable of?

With its tropical and subtropical climate, Taiwan is one of the areas most susceptible to natural disasters such as typhoons and heavy rain. The new supercomputer system that Fujitsu is developing for Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau (CWB) aims to mitigate these threats by enabling the CWB to advance weather observation, improve the accuracy of weather disaster forecasting and analysis, and strengthen its efforts in observing and analyzing the long-term effects of climate change. The system will also support the CWB’s efforts to diversify weather services as a critical component in promoting smart and advanced weather services, a goal of the CWB’s mid-term plan.

Fujitsu built the system on its FUJITSU Supercomputer PRIMEHPC FX1000 hardware, which features the same A64FX CPU as the Fugaku supercomputer developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu. Fujitsu will continue to support the CWB’s weather forecasting services by providing its expertise in high-performance computing and knowledge of weather services.

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