South Korea to Launch 614-Petaflop Supercomputer: What It Can Do

South Korea will launch its 614-petaflop supercomputer, named Hangang, in December. This powerful computing system will grant researchers, companies, national projects, and universities access to advanced computational resources. Hangang, the country’s sixth national supercomputer, boasts 8,496 GPUs, 9,936 CPUs, 205 petabytes of storage, and network speeds exceeding 400 Gbps.

The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to allocate the system's resources among national projects, researchers, universities, and companies. This shared-use model aims to provide Korean organizations with access to high-end computing without the need for expensive GPU infrastructure or reliance on private cloud services. Most of Hangang's capacity is already reserved for research and national projects, offering a significant performance boost compared to its predecessor.

With its theoretical performance of 614 petaflops, Hangang can perform up to 614 quadrillion floating-point operations per second. This represents a 24-fold increase in computing power, 10 times more storage, and four times greater network performance than its fifth-generation counterpart. Once operational, Hangang is expected to rank within the global top 10 in supercomputing rankings.

The government intends to allocate 55% of the system's resources to research and development innovation, 30% to national strategy projects, including those involving strategic technologies, and the remaining 15% to industrial users. Smaller projects can begin with a single four-GH200 node, while larger research endeavors can access resources equivalent to up to 50 nodes.

Applications for pilot service access run from September 23 to October 8, with users expected to receive access in late October to mid-November. Full service will commence in December.