Supercomputers/Systems/Earth Simulator
Japan · decommissioned · hpc
Earth Simulator
Also known as ES
Operated by JAMSTEC at Earth Simulator Center.
Phase 1 seed dataset — under review. These rows were compiled by hand from public operator, laboratory and vendor sources, and have not yet been through a second-reader verification pass. Every claim carries its source and a confidence tier; treat anything below verified as a lead, not a citation.
Measured performance
- Rmax
- 35.86 TFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 40.96 TFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 87.5%
- Cores
- 5,120
- Power
- —
- Per watt
- — 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 | NEC | — | Reported | jamstec.go.jp |
| CPU | NEC SX-6 vector processor CPUs NEC SX-6 vector, 640 nodes x 8 | NEC | 5,120 reported | Reported | jamstec.go.jp |
| Interconnect | NEC Earth Simulator crossbar Interconnect single-stage full crossbar | NEC | — | Reported | jamstec.go.jp |
| Cooling | Air cooling (CRAC/CRAH) Cooling air cooled | NEC | — | Reported | jamstec.go.jp |
The read
Held the top position by a margin wide enough to prompt a direct US policy response. 640 NEC nodes of eight SX-6 vector processors each, wired through a single-stage full crossbar — roughly 2,700 km of cable, a topology nobody has attempted at that scale since. It is the last No. 1 whose compute, interconnect and integration all came from one non-US vendor before the same pattern reappeared in China a decade later.
Timeline
- 1997 Announced source
- 2002-03 First operational source
- 2002-06 List debut at #1 (June 2002) source
- 2009 Decommissioned source
Public list appearances
Pointers only — rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.