It Takes 6,000 Gallons of Water to Cool the World’s Fastest Supercomputer
See the inner workings of the Frontier computer, which broke the exascale barrier in 2022.
Scientists in Tennessee in May unveiled a supercomputer that cracked the threshold of a quintillion calculations per second. The system, called Frontier—officially the world’s fastest—requires many gallons of water (for cooling), highly trained staff and massive physical infrastructure to operate. —Story and photographs by Alastair Philip Wiper
Supercomputers run hot. Keeping Frontier from melting down requires infrastructure that sprawls over 7,300 square feet. Powered by enormous pumps, about 6,000 gallons of water per minute flow through the system and across the computer’s more than 9,000 nodes. The water is not pre-chilled, making the program unusually energy-efficient.