NVidia GPU-Accelerated Eurora supercomputer sets world record for energy efficiency

Italy’s Eurora supercomputer, which uses NVidia Tesla GPU accelerators based on NVidia Kepler, the world’s fastest and most efficient high performance computing (HPC) architecture -has set a new record for data center energy efficiency. The Eurora supercomputer,built by Eurotech and deployed yesterday at the Cineca facility in Bologna, Italy, the country’s most powerful supercomputing center, reached 3,150 megaflops per watt of sustained performance — a mark 26 percent higher than the top system on the most recent Green500 list of the world’s most efficient supercomputers.


Eurora broke the record by combining 128 high-performance, energy-efficient NVidia Tesla K20 accelerators with the Eurotech Aurora Tigon supercomputer, featuring innovative Aurora Hot Water Cooling technology, which uses direct hot water cooling on all electronic and electrical components of the HPC system.

Pairing NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPUs with Eurotech’s Aurora Hot Water Cooling technology, the Eurora system is more efficient and compact than conventional air-cooled solutions. The use of Aurora Hot Water Cooling technology reduces or eliminates the need for air conditioning in typically warm climates like Italy. The thermal energy the system produces can be used to heat buildings, drive adsorption chillers for air conditioning or generate tri-generation, the combined production of electricity, heating and cooling.