Supercomputers/Systems/LANL Lightning
USA · operational · hpc
LANL Lightning
Also known as Lightning, Los Alamos Linux Networx Opteron cluster
Operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory .
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
- 8.05 TFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 11.26 TFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 71.5%
- Cores
- 2,816
- 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 | - Linux Networx built the Opteron cluster | Linux Networx HPENYSE
rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise | - | Reported | top500.orgosti.gov |
| CPU | - AMD Opteron 2 GHz, 2,816 processors | AMD | 2,816 reported | Reported | top500.org |
| Interconnect | - Myricom Myrinet interconnect | Myricom | - | Reported | top500.org |
The read
Lightning, the Linux Networx-built AMD Opteron cluster at Los Alamos National Laboratory. TOP500 lists 2,816 cores of 2 GHz Opteron on Myrinet under Linux, 8,051 GFlop/s Rmax and 11,264 GFlop/s Rpeak (https://www.top500.org/system/173164/), sixth on the November 2003 list and still listed at rank 253 in November 2007. The June 2004 TOP500 release, hosted by the US DOE's OSTI archive, singles out the Linux Networx-built Opteron cluster at Los Alamos as a top-10 system. The laboratory's own pages fetched give no hardware detail, and the name 'Lightning' comes from TOP500's 2003 list entry; both sources are TOP500-derived, so the tier is reported. No site row is linked because no page states which Los Alamos building houses it. Last evidence is the November 2007 list.
Timeline
Public list appearances
Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.
Change history
- 2026-10-09 Added LANL Lightning
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 |
|---|---|---|
| osti.gov | could not be fetched | - |
| top500.org | names system only | - |
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
Latency-optimised versus throughput-optimised processors, NUMA, and the end of the host-to-device copy.
The interconnect
Topologies, why latency and tail behaviour matter more than bandwidth, and how the fabric market consolidated.