A New Era of Korean Computing
South Korea has officially entered a new phase of high-performance computing with the activation of its sixth national supercomputer, named 'Hangang.' Named after the iconic river that flows through Seoul, the system is designed to propel the nation to the forefront of global AI and scientific research. By leveraging cutting-edge hardware, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) expects the machine to secure a position among the world's top 10 most powerful supercomputing systems.
Power Under the Hood
The performance leap delivered by Hangang is staggering. The system is 24 times faster than its predecessor, the 2018-era 'Nurion.' This massive increase in computing power is driven by a sophisticated hardware architecture designed to handle intensive AI modeling and complex scientific simulations.
- 8,496 Nvidia GH200 integrated GPU and CPU accelerator chips.
- 9,936 CPUs supporting high-speed data processing.
- 10-fold increase in storage capacity compared to the previous generation.
- A 4-fold improvement in overall network performance.
In addition to its raw processing power, the system features a cutting-edge direct liquid cooling implementation. By circulating water to cool the processor chips directly, the facility has improved its power usage effectiveness (PUE) from 1.35 in previous models to an impressive 1.15, marking a major shift in sustainable supercomputing design.
The Quantum Hybrid Future
Perhaps the most ambitious aspect of the Hangang project is its scheduled integration with quantum computing. In the first half of next year, KISTI plans to link the supercomputer with IonQ’s 100-qubit 'Tempo' quantum system to create a hybrid computing environment.
Supercomputers calculate very quickly but take a long time to optimize, or find the right path, while quantum computers are slow and error-prone in calculation but fast at optimization. Connecting the two can create a hybrid computer that offsets each other's weaknesses and brings out their strengths.
— Representative, KISTI
This hybrid approach is intended to tackle national challenges that current classical systems struggle to solve alone. From accelerating drug discovery and materials science to improving financial modeling and logistics, the integration of classical supercomputing with quantum optimization is expected to create practical, real-world solutions that were previously out of reach.