Six decades of high performance computing in Thailand

1963 — The first computer in Thailand

IBM 1620

Statistical Computing Centre (Building 9), Department of Statistics, Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, Chulalongkorn University

1986 — The birth of the Thai Internet

intERLab, AIT

Pioneered by Prof. Dr. Kanchana Kanchanasut — the first link from AIT to Melbourne.

1991 — High Performance Computing Center (HPCC)

By the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC), NSTDA

https://www.nectec.or.th/

1992 — Thailand connects to the global Internet

ThaiSarn 1, the first inter-institutional research network — AIT, CU, PSU, KU, NECTEC.

1994 — Thailand's first supercomputer

CRAY EL98

HPCC, NECTEC, NSTDA

• Processors: 8
• Memory: 2 GB DRAM

1995 — Research institutes and universities begin procuring HPC systems

The BEOWULF cluster concept emerges

KU | KMUTT | KMITL | TMD

A diverse mix of systems: IBM SP2 / IBM RS600 / SUN SPARC / HP (Convex) / DEC Alpha.

1997 — Computational Science and Engineering Association (CSEA) — unofficial

Researchers, scientists, engineers and computer scientists come together as an informal computational science and engineering community.

1997 — SMILE project started

By Aj. Putchong Uthayopas and Aj. Surasak Sanguanpong.

1999 — The PIRUN Cluster

PIRUN — Pile of Inexpensive and Redundant Universal Nodes

Kasetsart University (KU)

The fastest supercomputer in Thailand at the time, together with the SMILE Cluster Management System (SCMS) and SQMS toolkits.

2001 — The ThaiGrid project (TNGP) begins

The first grid linking KU and KMUTNB, later joined by AIT, CU, KU, KMUTNB, KMUTT, KMITL, SUT, TMD, CMU, KKU, WU and PSU.

2003 — The Thai e-Science Project begins

• Computational Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, CU
• Department of Computer Engineering, CU
• HPCNC, KU

2006 — Thai National Grid Center (TNGC)

The national grid centre is established by the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organization) — SIPA, together with IBM.

2007 — Tera Cluster — TNGC

The fastest computing cluster in Thailand at 2.5 TeraFlops.

• Performance: 2.5 TFlops
• Nodes: 200 (800 cores)
• Filesystem: Lustre 5 TB

2007 — Computational Science and Engineering Association (CSEA) — official

The computational science and engineering association is formally established.

2008 — ThaiGrid project (TNGP) — outcomes

• A network of 22 universities
• Over 2,000 people trained
• Technology transfer through events, academic seminars and research
• Budget constraints meant the project could not continue much longer

2008 — The 1 TeraFlops era

SILA Cluster

HPC Research Centre, Research and Development Institute, Ramkhamhaeng University (RU)

• Performance: 1 TFlops

2009 — The 10 TeraFlops era

Eclipse Cluster

BIOTEC, NSTDA

• Performance: 10 TFlops

2010 — Thai National Grid Center (TNGC) — discontinued

The national grid centre closes and the ThaiGrid project (TNGP) comes to an end.

2011 — The National e-Science Infrastructure Consortium is founded

Initiated under the royal patronage of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn as part of the Thailand–CERN programme, and founded on 27 September 2011 through an MoU between five organisations.

• National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA)
• Chulalongkorn University (CU)
• Suranaree University of Technology (SUT)
• King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT)
• Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute (HAII)

• CPU cores: 360
• Storage: 350 TB

2012 — The UniNet2 era — NEdNet P1, MOENet, VECNet

A 50 Gbps national backbone operated by the Ministry of Education.

• Backbone: 50 Gbps

2013 — National e-Science Infrastructure Consortium

Research and development of computational infrastructure

• High Energy Particle Physics
• Computational Science and Engineering
• Computer Science and Engineering

2014 — Successful connection to the LHC at CERN

Thailand begins processing WLCG data at Tier 2 and Tier 3 level.

• CPU cores: 1,960
• Storage: 675 TB

2015 — Two more organisations join the consortium

• Electronic Government Agency — EGA (now DGA)
• National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand — NARIT

• CPU cores: 2,672
• Storage: 597 TB

2016 — Chalawan HPC Cluster (Castor)

National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (NARIT)

https://www.narit.or.th/

2017 — Two more full members join the consortium

• Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology — TINT
• Synchrotron Light Research Institute — SLRI

• CPU cores: 3,424
• Storage: 1,171 TB

2018 — National e-Science Infrastructure Consortium — nine member organisations

Pooled resources across CU, EGA, HAII, KMUTT, NARIT, NSTDA, SLRI, SUT and TINT.

• CPU cores: 4,100
• Storage: 1,254.6 TB

2018 — IST HPC Cluster

School of Information Science and Technology (IST), VISTEC

2018 — HPC-WRF

Thai Meteorological Department (TMD)

2019 — NSTDA Supercomputer Center (ThaiSC) is founded

Established by National S&T Infrastructure (NSTI), NSTDA

https://thaisc.io/

2019 — TARA HPC Cluster

NSTDA Supercomputer Center (ThaiSC), NSTDA

The fastest supercomputer in Thailand at the time, combining compute, high-memory, GPU (NVIDIA Tesla V100) and DGX nodes.

• CPU cores: 4,320
• Storage: 800 TB

2020 — A year of change

TARA becomes a key resource within the National e-Science Infrastructure Consortium.

2020 — Thailand A.I. University Consortium

An MoU between six universities, two funding agencies and one company: NVIDIA, MHESI, PMU-C, CMKL, KMITL, CU, MU, KKU and PSU.

2020 — CMKL University deploys an NVIDIA DGX POD (APEX)

CMKL University

The fastest supercomputer in Thailand at 30 Petaflops of AI performance, and one of the largest systems in Southeast Asia.

• AI performance: 30 PFlops

2021 — ERAWAN HPC

Information Technology Service Center (ITSC), Chiang Mai University

2021 — PSU HPC

Prince of Songkla University (PSU)

A hybrid cluster combining Kubernetes and Slurm, backed by IBM Spectrum Scale storage.

2021 — KKU HPC

Office of Digital Technology (ODT), Khon Kaen University

2021 — MU HPC

MU-AI Center, Mahidol University

2022 — LANTA Supercomputer

NSTDA Supercomputer Center (ThaiSC), NSTDA

The fastest supercomputer in Thailand and ASEAN, ranked No. 70 on the TOP500 (HPE Cray EX235n, AMD EPYC 7713 64C 2GHz, NVIDIA A100 40GB, Slingshot-11).

• TOP500 rank: #70
• Linpack: 8.15 PFlop/s
• CPU cores: 31,744
• GPUs: 704 × A100

https://thaisc.io/thaisc-resorces/lanta

2022 — ChatGPT released

30 November 2022 — OpenAI

2023 — AI is everywhere

• Researchers, developers and organisations worldwide turn their attention to AI
• GPGPU and HPC see a leap forward in accelerator chip development
• Demand for HPC and AI-HPC reaches an all-time high
• Demand for AI engineers, data engineers and DevOps grows sharply
• Meanwhile operations talent — system and network engineers — is in severe shortage
• Investment in AI and HPC infrastructure in Thailand lacks continuity

2024 — THE CRUST 2.5

PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP)

The fastest supercomputer in Thailand, using liquid cooling.

• CPU cores: 47,360
• GPUs: 512 × H100

2024 — KU Nontri AI HPC

Office of Computer Services (OCS), Kasetsart University

2024 — SIAM.AI is established

Exascale computing — the first such company in Thailand, operating several clusters that rank among the top in ASEAN (DC SuperNAP: Hopper H100 1K, DC OneAsia: Hopper H200 1K, DC STT: Grace Blackwell GB200 3.5K).

• GB200 (DC STT): 155.52 PFlops

What is the next HPC / AI-HPC evolution?

This page is open for HPC centres and engineers across Thailand to write the next chapter together.