The University of Utah returns to the global supercomputing rankings with Redtail, an AI factory designed to expand access to advanced computing across the state.
Redtail ranked No. 159 for performance and No. 76 for energy efficiency on the Top500 list of supercomputers released in late June. Among U.S. public universities, Redtail ranks fifth after systems at Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Florida. The system comes online this summer with the goal of advancing Utah's Pro-Human AI Initiative and amplifying existing strengths, from accelerating lifesaving discoveries to supporting workforce training to driving innovation in manufacturing, agriculture, aerospace and more.
"I believe Redtail is more than one of the world's fastest and greenest supercomputers, it is the foundation of Utah's AI future," said Taylor Randall, university president. "We are building an AI ecosystem with our partners where researchers, students, entrepreneurs and communities can use AI to solve society's greatest challenges. Because we believe the future of AI will be measured not just by the speed of our computers, but by the impact it will have on people's lives."
Redtail is the result of a $50 million public-private partnership among the U, the state of Utah and the Huntsman Family Foundation, with HPE supercomputing infrastructure and NVIDIA technologies. The collaboration expands Utahns' access to advanced AI computing: the HPE Cray system in Redtail also powers leading supercomputers in the Top500 list. And with its list debut, Redtail joins the country's most capable academic AI systems.
"Our top listing among peer universities underscores our mission to serve the public good, prioritizing safety and broad access to state-of-the-art AI infrastructure for Utahns beyond a single lab, campus or company," said Manish Parashar, chief AI officer for the university and the executive director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute.
Such access depends on more than hardware. AI infrastructure is becoming foundational across disciplines but requires significant expertise to deploy, maintain and use effectively. For Redtail, much of that day-to-day expertise will come from SCI's Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC), which has supported research computing and data needs for the U and beyond for nearly 40 years. CHPC, which is directed by Bill Miller, will operate Redtail and provide user enablement and support.
"Our aim is to lower barriers to entry so that Utah researchers, educators, students, businesses and public servants can easily use AI at scale to accelerate their projects," said Miller, senior director for research computing and data. To fully realize that vision, Redtail's broader enablement ecosystem will include AI ambassadors and engineers, extensive training programs and innovation labs-and CHPC will continue to work closely with HPE and other industry partners.
"We are proud to celebrate the debut of Redtail on the list of the world's fastest supercomputers, accelerating the state of Utah's AI strategy across research, engineering and talent efforts," said Trish Damkroger, senior vice president and general manager, HPC & AI Infrastructure Solutions at HPE. "Our partnership with the University of Utah brings together strong expertise in high performance computing and large-scale infrastructure that will help advance Utah's statewide AI efforts."
The recent rise of generative AI has heightened competition for Top500 spots, with leading systems often representing billions of dollars in investment. Rankings have been released twice a year since 1993 and are determined by how quickly systems solve a very large math problem that pushes a machine to use its processors, memory, networking and software libraries at a huge scale. The Green500, first published in 2006, uses the same benchmark but ranks systems by how much computing work they complete per unit of energy consumed.
University of Utah systems have made a total of 18 appearances on the Top500 list, though this year's inclusion is the U's first since 2009. It's also the university's first-ever appearance on the Green500.
