computer science

Selene (supercomputer)

Selene (supercomputer) is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Selene (supercomputer) rather than just read about it. In short: Selene is a supercomputer developed by Nvidia, capable of achieving 63.460 petaflops, ranking as the fifth fastest supercomputer in the world, when it entered the list. Selene is based on the Nvidia DGX system consisting of AMD CPUs, Nvidia A100 GPUs, and Mellanox HDDR networking.

Key takeaways

Selene (supercomputer) belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Selene (supercomputer) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Selene (supercomputer) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Selene is a supercomputer developed by Nvidia, capable of achieving 63.460 petaflops, ranking as the fifth fastest supercomputer in the world, when it entered the list. Selene is based on the Nvidia DGX system consisting of AMD CPUs, Nvidia A100 GPUs, and Mellanox HDDR networking. Selene is based on the Nvidia DGX Superpod, which is a high performance turnkey supercomputer solution provided by Nvidia using DGX hardware. DGX Superpod is a tightly integrated system that combines high performance DGX compute nodes with fast storage and high bandwidth networking. It aims to provide a turnkey solution to high-demand machine learning workloads. Selene was built in three months and is the fastest industrial system in the US while being the second-most energy-efficient supercomputing system ever. Selene utilizing 1080 AMD Epyc CPUs and 4320 A100 GPUs is used to train BERT, the natural language processor, in less than 16 seconds, which usually takes most smaller systems about 20 minutes to execute. IEEE Spectrum reported that as per December 2021 among all the commercially available supercomputing systems Selene topped all the results of MLPerf benchmark, which is the benchmark developed by the consortium of artificial intelligence developers from academia, research labs, and industry aiming to unbiasedly evaluate the training and inference performance for hardware, software, and services used for AI. Selene is used to research different ways to end the coronavirus. It has been used to tackle problems around the concepts of protein docking and quantum chemistry, which are vital to developing an understanding of the coronavirus and a potential cure for it. Nvidia used Selene to train its GauGAN2 AI model, which is used in Nvidia Canvas software to create art using artificial intelligence, using 10 million landscape images for training. GauGAN2 AI model uses segmentation mapping, inpainting, and text-to-image generation in a single model to create computer generated images.

See also Computer science Computing Top500

References

External links Nvidia's blog on Selene website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Selene (supercomputer)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Selene (supercomputer) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Selene (supercomputer) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Selene (supercomputer) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Selene (supercomputer)

In research: Selene (supercomputer) appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Selene (supercomputer) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Selene (supercomputer) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Computer hardware stubs, GPGPU supercomputers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Selene (supercomputer) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Selene (supercomputer) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Selene (supercomputer) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Selene (supercomputer) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Selene (supercomputer) in simple terms?

Why does Selene (supercomputer) matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Selene (supercomputer)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Selene (supercomputer).