Supercomputers/Systems/DWD SX-Aurora (2025)
Germany · operational · hpc
DWD SX-Aurora (2025)
Also known as DWD NEC SX-Aurora TSUBASA C401-8
Operated by Deutscher Wetterdienst at DWD Computing Centre (Offenbach) .
Phase 1 seed dataset, compiled by hand. These rows were built from public operator, laboratory and vendor sources. A mechanical second-reader pass has since fetched every cited source: 1092 of 1153 systems have a readable citation that names them, and 40 are genuinely weakly sourced. Every claim carries its source and a confidence tier. Treat anything below verified as a lead, not a citation.
Measured performance
- Rmax
- 13.58 PFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 16.43 PFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 82.7%
- Cores
- 54,400
- Power
- 1.69 MW
- Per watt
- 8.0 GF/W
Figures are as last publicly reported for the configuration described below, not a live measurement. Where a system was upgraded in place, the post-upgrade configuration is shown and the earlier one appears in the timeline.
What this machine is made of
One row per supplier relationship. “Supplier at build” is the company that shipped the part at the time; where that company has since been acquired, the parent it rolls up to today is shown beside it. That distinction is what makes ticker-level aggregation possible across a thirty-year dataset.
| Role | Part | Supplier at build | Quantity | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integrator | - NEC SX-Aurora TSUBASA C401-8 | NEC | - | Reported | top500.org |
| Accelerator | NEC SX-Aurora TSUBASA Vector Engine Accelerators NEC vector · 8C · 1.6 GHz · 16 nm · 300 W NEC Vector Engine Type 30A 1.6 GHz (16C) as named by TOP500; processor field reads Type10AE 8C 1.58 GHz | NEC | - | Reported | top500.org |
| Interconnect | NVIDIA InfiniBand HDR Interconnect Fat tree or dragonfly+ · 200 Gb/s per port · About 0.6 microseconds InfiniBand (TOP500 system name says NDR200, interconnect field says HDR) | NVIDIA | - | Reported | top500.org |
The read
The German Weather Service's 2025 NEC SX-Aurora TSUBASA C401-8 vector system, listed by TOP500 as Vector Engine Type 30A 1.6 GHz (16C) with 54,400 cores, 13.58 PFlop/s Rmax, 16.43 PFlop/s Rpeak and 1,692 kW, ranked 113 in June 2025 and 130 in November 2025, and still listed in June 2026 at rank 149. A second 2025 DWD entry (41,920 cores, 9.20 PFlop/s Rmax, TOP500 system 180393) is a companion cluster not recorded separately. TOP500 is the only source consulted for this configuration, so the tier is reported; DWD's 2022 HPC User Forum slides state its operational NWP suite already ran on NEC vector engines.
Timeline
Public list appearances
Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.
Site & facility
Change history
- 2026-10-02 Added DWD SX-Aurora (2025)
Source check
We fetched this system's own citations and recorded whether each page actually mentions it. This is a corroboration signal, not a fact check, and it is published so you can see how well the sourcing holds up rather than take it on trust.
| Cited source | Result | Found on the page |
|---|---|---|
| top500.org | names system and part | NEC SX-Aurora TSUBASA Vector Engine, NVIDIA InfiniBand HDR |
Checked 2026-10-09 by pnpm verify. Re-run it and the table changes with the web.
Further reading
Operating a supercomputer
Acceptance testing, why "installed" and "in production" are six months apart, and the machine lifecycle.
Inside a node
Why accelerators exist, what the memory hierarchy costs, and how the CPU and accelerator merged onto one package.
The interconnect
Topologies, why latency and tail behaviour matter more than bandwidth, and how the fabric market consolidated.