Skip to main content
NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division World-class modeling, simulation, and supercomputing in support of the NASA mission

Pleiades Supercomputer Performance Leaps to 5.35 Petaflops with Latest Expansions

Photo of the NAS hyperwall.
The Pleiades supercomputer was recently expanded with 14 SGI ICE X racks containing Intel Xeon E5-2680v3 (Haswell) processors, bringing the total number of Haswell racks to 29 and increasing theoretical peak performance from 4.49 to 5.35 petaflops.

For the second time in three months, systems engineers at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility have expanded the agency’s flagship Pleiades supercomputer, increasing its theoretical peak performance from 4.49 to 5.35 petaflops (quadrillion floating-point operations per second).

After the initial 15 Haswell racks were added during the previous expansion in October 2014, Pleiades achieved a sustained performance rate of 3.38 petaflops, moving up to seventh place in the United States and 12th worldwide on the most recent TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. The TOP500 list was announced on November 17, 2014 at the 26th International Supercomputing Conference (SC14) in New Orleans.

NASA’'s supercomputing requirements will continue to grow over time, as the agency increasingly leverages high-fidelity modeling and simulation and large-scale data analysis to pursue its challenging missions. In order to meet this ever-growing demand, NAS regularly upgrades and expands the supercomputing resources it provides to the agency.