The High-Performance Computing Center of the University of Stuttgart (HLRS) celebrated the commencement of operations for its state-of-the-art supercomputer, ‘Hunter’. Designed and manufactured by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Hunter promises to offer cutting-edge infrastructure for large-scale simulation, artificial intelligence (AI), and data analytics applications in the realms of science, industry, and the public sector. Hunter is also built with sustainability in mind, utilizing a 100% fanless direct liquid cooling system and a dynamic power capping approach to maximize energy efficiency.
Hunter’s architecture is powered by energy-efficient AMD Instinct Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), which integrate CPU cores and GPUs. This marks a new chapter in the history of supercomputing in Stuttgart, with HLRS ready to address complex problems in engineering, weather and climate modelling, biomedical research, materials science, and more.
“Hunter offers scientists at the University of Stuttgart and across Germany a future-proof infrastructure for AI-based simulations and high-performance computing of a new quality,” said Prof. Peter Middendorf, Rector of the University of Stuttgart. “Hunter also benefits the entire ecosystem of our university with its global players, its strong medium-sized companies, and its growing start-up scene.”
Prof. Michael Resch, Director of HLRS, emphasized the transformative period in high-performance computing driven by rapid AI development and a growing focus on sustainability. “With Hunter, our user community gains a state-of-the-art infrastructure that will support them in navigating this changing HPC landscape and enable them to remain competitive at the frontiers of scientific discovery and industrial innovation,” he said.
The Hunter supercomputer, a €15 million project, received joint funding from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry for Science, Research, and Art, and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Education and Research, facilitated by the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS). “A high-performance computer like the new Hunter is not simply a technical innovation—more importantly, it is necessary for the future capabilities of our country and a key to progress in science and industry,” stated Petra Olschowski, Minister of Science, Research and Art of the State of Baden-Württemberg.
Hunter employs the HPE Cray Supercomputing EX4000 architecture, aligned with the world’s leading exascale systems. The supercomputer features 136 nodes, four HPE Slingshot high-performance interconnects per node, and HPE Cray Supercomputing Storage Systems E2000. HPE’s holistic programming environment and performance cluster manager enhance system health, management, and power efficiency.
Heiko Meyer, Executive Vice President and Chief Sales Officer at HPE, highlighted HLRS’s role in cutting-edge science and industrial applications, adding, “We are proud to help advance HLRS’s mission by taking a big step into the future of supercomputing and AI with Hunter, and subsequently with Herder. This will open up completely new opportunities for foundational research and industrial product innovation.”
Hunter’s AMD Instinct MI300A APUs combine CPUs, GPU accelerators, and high-bandwidth memory, delivering a superior performance-to-energy ratio, using 80% less energy at peak performance than its predecessor, Hawk. Brad McCredie, Senior Vice President of Data Center Engineering at AMD, remarked, “The AMD Instinct MI300A APUs are driving innovation by delivering leadership performance and efficiency for critical workloads at the convergence of HPC and AI.”
HPE’s dynamic power capping software, co-developed with HLRS, optimizes power distribution to applications, reducing overall power consumption by about 20%, aligning with sustainability goals and ensuring high performance without compromising energy efficiency. With a theoretical peak performance of 48.1 Petaflops, Hunter stands as a testament to HLRS’s commitment to advancing the capabilities of high-performance computing and contributing to scientific and industrial breakthroughs.
As HLRS and its partners continue to drive forward, Hunter’s deployment represents just the beginning of future advancements in supercomputing, promising to foster further innovation, enhance industrial productivity, and support groundbreaking research across various fields.
