National Supercomputer No. 6 to Launch in December... 8,496 GPUs to Power Research Fields

Computational Power 24 Times Greater Than Its Predecessor, Expected to Rank Among World’s Top 10
30% Allocated to National Strategy, 55% to R&D, 15% to Industry ... Applications Open from the 28th

The sixth National Supercomputer, which will be used for artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced scientific research, will begin full-scale operation in December 2026. Equipped with 8,496 of the latest graphics processing units (GPUs), it delivers 24 times greater computational performance compared to the previous, fifth-generation system. The government plans to allocate 55% of the total computing resources to general research conducted by industry, academia, and research institutes, and 15% to corporate use, with the aim of enhancing researchers' access to high-performance computing.

On September 9, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) announced the launch of the 2026 Supercomputer No. 6 Innovation Support Program, inviting researchers from industry, academia, and research institutes to submit applications to utilize the supercomputer’s ultra-high-performance resources.

Reference photo to aid in understanding the article. Supercomputer No.5. Provided by KISTI

Supercomputer No. 6 is equipped with 8,496 of NVIDIA’s latest GPUs, including the GH200. It also features 9,936 central processing units (CPUs), and its theoretical peak computing power reaches 614 petaflops (PF). One PF can perform one quadrillion floating-point operations per second.

The system has 205 petabytes (PB) of storage and a network speed exceeding 400 Gbps. Compared to its predecessor, Supercomputer No. 5, theoretical computing power has increased by 24 times, storage capacity by 10 times, and network speed by 4 times. According to the latest Top500 global supercomputer rankings, the government expects Supercomputer No. 6 to rank within the world’s top 10.

Following a construction contract signed with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in May of the previous year, the system installation and initial inspections were completed last month. Performance and stability evaluations are currently underway, with official service scheduled to begin in December 2026.

55% of Supercomputer Resources Allocated to Industry-Academia-Research ... 15% Separately Reserved for Corporations

The resources of Supercomputer No. 6 will be distributed across three programs, depending on their intended use: National Strategy, R&D Innovation, and Industrial Innovation.

Approximately 30% of total resources will be dedicated to the National Strategy Program. This program targets urgent and highly significant national projects, such as securing national strategic technologies. Priority will be given to major government-led R&D initiatives, including the K-Moonshot and the seven SEEDs projects.

The largest share, 55%, will be allocated to the R&D Innovation Program for general researchers in industry, academia, and research institutes. This program will support both “large-scale research,” which requires massive simulations and ultra-parallel computing, and “creative research,” which covers general computational science and AI research.

A new “exploratory research” category has also been established for researchers at the idea stage to pilot the supercomputer's capabilities. Following only minimal review, applicants will be given access to resources equivalent to one node. Each node in Supercomputer No. 6 consists of four GH200 GPUs.

An Industrial Innovation Program will also be introduced specifically for businesses. Around 15% of all resources will be allocated to the industrial sector, along with KISTI’s consulting and technical support services. This initiative is designed to help small and venture companies, which may lack the infrastructure for large-scale GPU deployments, conduct AI research and development.

Applications for official service will be accepted via the National Supercomputing Center website from September 28 until 6 PM on October 16. Selected researchers and businesses will be allocated resources starting in December 2026. Applications for the pre-launch pilot service will be accepted from September 23 to October 8.

Kim Sungsoo, policy chief for research and development at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “Supercomputer No. 6 is a key infrastructure that will drive a major leap forward in scientific and technological productivity in the AI era. We expect it to deliver meaningful results by securing national strategic technologies and enabling innovation in research across industry, academia, and research institutes.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.