Korea unveils $276 mil. 'Hangang' supercomputer
The "Hangang" supercomputer / Courtesy of Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information
Korea has officially launched its sixth national supercomputer, named "Hangang" after the iconic Han River flowing through Seoul, to propel cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) and scientific research.
The Ministry of Science and ICT and the state-run Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) marked the launch Monday at KISTI headquarters in Daejeon, the nation’s primary scientific and research hub located about 140 kilometers south of Seoul. The ceremony brought together roughly 200 leaders from across industry, academia and government research institutions.
Constructed at a cost of 382.5 billion won ($276 million), Hangang replaces Nurion, the fifth-generation supercomputer deployed in 2018. Nurion ranked 11th globally at launch and supported 1,730 research projects over its eight-year lifespan. Those efforts produced 1,520 peer-reviewed papers, including 70 published in top-tier international journals such as Nature, Science and Cell.
While Hangang continues running the same heavy computational simulations handled by its predecessor, such as vehicle crash tests and real-time weather forecasting, it represents a major technological shift toward modern machine learning. Equipped with 8,496 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), including Nvidia’s GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips, alongside 9,936 central processing units (CPUs), the system is explicitly built to accelerate complex AI workloads.
Compared to Nurion, Hangang boasts 24 times the theoretical computing power, 10 times the storage capacity, and four times the network transfer performance. Delivering a theoretical peak performance of 614.7 petaflops, equivalent to 614.7 quadrillion calculations per second, the ministry expects Hangang to secure a spot in or near the global top 10 in the upcoming Top 500 supercomputer rankings.
Following a pilot testing phase that began in late October, full operational service is scheduled to open on Dec. 16. Hangang’s primary mission will focus on powering national strategic research, including K-Moonshot, a flagship Korean government initiative applying advanced AI models to tackle major scientific and technological challenges.
“We will do our utmost to ensure stable operations and top-tier user support, leveraging KISTI’s long-standing operational experience in supercomputing,” KISTI President Lee Sik said during the ceremony.
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.