South Korea Activates Hangang Supercomputer

South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) held a launch ceremony for the country’s sixth national supercomputer, Hangang, on the 2nd at KISTI’s headquarters in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon. Hangang is in trial operation and is scheduled to begin official service on the 14th of next month. It is the first new national supercomputer built in eight years, since the fifth system, Nurion, was introduced in 2018.

A supercomputer processes and analyzes large volumes of data faster than an ordinary computer. The government runs the national supercomputer program to ease the burden on researchers in industry, academia, and research institutions who might otherwise need to buy expensive equipment or rely on private cloud servers. Since the first system, Cray 2S, in December 1988, national supercomputers have supported work including vehicle-crash simulations, engine design, weather forecasting, liquid-rocket engine combustion simulations, next-generation battery development, and extreme-climate research.

When Nurion was introduced in 2018, it ranked 11th worldwide. Over the past eight years, it supported 1,730 research projects, which produced 1,520 papers published in journals indexed by the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). Its international performance ranking later fell to around 120th. Hangang will continue Nurion’s support for large-scale computational science and simulations using central processing units (CPUs), while also enabling AI science research using graphics processing units (GPUs). It includes 8,496 GPUs and 9,936 CPUs, including Nvidia’s integrated CPU-GPU GH200 chips.

Hangang’s theoretical computing performance is 24 times that of Nurion, its storage capacity is 10 times greater, and its network performance is four times higher. The ministry expects Hangang to rank among the world’s top 10 in the global performance rankings due to be announced at the Supercomputing Conference (SC2026) in mid-month. The project had aimed to begin service in 2025, but was delayed as the generative AI boom drove up GPU prices and bidding failed four times.

Hangang will prioritize national strategic research and development, including K-Moonshot, an AI-based project to solve major national challenges. Resource allocation ratios have been set to support ambitious research at universities and government-funded research institutes as well as technology development by venture firms and startups. KISTI began recruiting researchers in September and is currently running Hangang on a trial basis. KISTI President Lee Sik said the institute would support ambitious research by Korean researchers and work to ensure stable operations and user support. Kim Seong-su, director general for research and development policy at the ministry, said Hangang would support the convergence of AI and science and technology, national challenge-solving initiatives such as K-Moonshot, and research across industry, academia, and research institutions, forming a foundation for stronger scientific and technological competitiveness.

South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) held a launch ceremony for the country’s sixth national supercomputer, Hangang, on the 2nd at KISTI’s headquarters in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon. Hangang is in trial operation and is scheduled to begin official service on the 14th of next month. It is the first new national supercomputer built in eight years, since the fifth system, Nurion, was introduced in 2018.

A supercomputer processes and analyzes large volumes of data faster than an ordinary computer. The government runs the national supercomputer program to ease the burden on researchers in industry, academia, and research institutions who might otherwise need to buy expensive equipment or rely on private cloud servers. Since the first system, Cray 2S, in December 1988, national supercomputers have supported work including vehicle-crash simulations, engine design, weather forecasting, liquid-rocket engine combustion simulations, next-generation battery development, and extreme-climate research.

When Nurion was introduced in 2018, it ranked 11th worldwide. Over the past eight years, it supported 1,730 research projects, which produced 1,520 papers published in journals indexed by the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). Its international performance ranking later fell to around 120th. Hangang will continue Nurion’s support for large-scale computational science and simulations using central processing units (CPUs), while also enabling AI science research using graphics processing units (GPUs). It includes 8,496 GPUs and 9,936 CPUs, including Nvidia’s integrated CPU-GPU GH200 chips.

Hangang’s theoretical computing performance is 24 times that of Nurion, its storage capacity is 10 times greater, and its network performance is four times higher. The ministry expects Hangang to rank among the world’s top 10 in the global performance rankings due to be announced at the Supercomputing Conference (SC2026) in mid-month. The project had aimed to begin service in 2025, but was delayed as the generative AI boom drove up GPU prices and bidding failed four times.

Hangang will prioritize national strategic research and development, including K-Moonshot, an AI-based project to solve major national challenges. Resource allocation ratios have been set to support ambitious research at universities and government-funded research institutes as well as technology development by venture firms and startups. KISTI began recruiting researchers in September and is currently running Hangang on a trial basis. KISTI President Lee Sik said the institute would support ambitious research by Korean researchers and work to ensure stable operations and user support. Kim Seong-su, director general for research and development policy at the ministry, said Hangang would support the convergence of AI and science and technology, national challenge-solving initiatives such as K-Moonshot, and research across industry, academia, and research institutions, forming a foundation for stronger scientific and technological competitiveness.