Aug 18, 2021 10:35:00

What are the specifications of a computer that set a world record by calculating the circumference ratio up to 62.8 trillion digits?

On August 16, 2021, the Center for Data Analytics, Visualization and Simulation (DAViS) of the University of Applied Sciences in Graubünden, Switzerland, calculated the pi to 62.8 trillion digits over 108 days and 9 hours. Announced. DAViS also publishes the hardware specifications of the computer used for the calculation.

Die FH Graubünden kennt Pi am genauesten – Weltrekord! --News --FH Graubünden
https://www.fhgr.ch/news/newsdetail/die-fh-graubuenden-kennt-pi-am-genauesten-weltrekord/

Pi-Challenge --Weltrekordversuch der FH Graubünden --FH Graubünden
https://www.fhgr.ch/fachgebiete/angewandte-zukunftstechnologien/davis-zentrum/pi-challenge/

Pi calculated to '62.8 trillion digits' with a pair of 32-core AMD Epyc chips, 1TB RAM, 510TB disk space • The Register
https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/17/pi_world_record_challenged/

DAViS completed the calculation at 9:30 am on August 14, 2021, with a calculated pi of up to 62,831,853,071,796 digits. The world record for pi calculation so far is 50 trillion digits calculated by Timothy Marikan over 303 days in 2020, and this DAViS record is about 12.8 trillion digits of the world record so far. It has exceeded and updated. The calculation speed will be about twice that of Google in 2019 and about 3.5 times that of Mr. Marikan in 2020.

The computer used in DAViS is equipped with 32 cores, 64 threads, frequency 2.9 GHz, burst frequency 3.4 GHz,

two AMD EPYC 7542s with L3 cache 128 MB, 1 TB of RAM, and the OS is Ubuntu. It is said that 20.04 is installed. In addition, the y-cruncher that was used when Google and Marikan set the world record was used for the calculation program of pi.

DAViS uses JBOD equipped with 38 7200RPM HDDs with a capacity of 16TB based on the judgment that 'SSD performance deteriorates over time'. This is because the memory is very expensive, 34 out of 38 are used for swap area , and the data storage itself is 510 TB.

Professor Heiko Ryorke, head of DAViS, said, 'We wanted to achieve some goals in this record-breaking challenge. We have accumulated a lot of know-how in the process of preparing and executing calculations. , I was able to optimize the process. ' In addition, project manager Thomas Keller said, 'This calculation has prepared us for use in research and development with a large amount of data and calculation. At the same time, we have weaknesses in the infrastructure such as insufficient backup capacity. I was also able to grasp. '

According to Graubunden University of Applied Sciences, the last 10 digits of the pi known at the time of writing the article is '7817924264'.

by Álvaro Ibáñez