The Forerunner 1 supercomputer has officially gone online at the Tainan
branch of the National Center for High Performance Computing.

The Forerunner 1 is replacing the now retired Taiwania 1 supercomputer, which
was built in 2017.

According to the National Applied Research Laboratories, the Forerunner 1 has
62,496 computing cores, a peak performance of up to 3.5 petaflops and 9.2
petabytes of storage.

NARLabs says the new supercomputer is suitable for various high-performance
computing tasks related to climate prediction, astrophysics, molecular
modeling and engineering.

Forerunner 1's construction began in 2023.

National Center for High Performance Computing Director General Zhang
Chao-liang says it provides enhanced computing performance and better energy
efficiency.

Zhang also says the center will complete the installation of 16 petaflops of
graphics processing unit computing power by the end of this year to meet the
demands of research and applications related to large language models and
data-driven A-I.