Analysis of Linpack and power efficiencies of the world’s TOP500 supercomputers

• Novel representation of TOP500 and GREEN500 data presented.
• Supercomputer efficiency analyzed.
• Major evolutionary trends of top-performing systems highlighted.

The biannual TOP500 list of the highest performing supercomputers has chronicled, and even fostered, the development of recent supercomputing platforms. Coupled with the GREEN500 list that launched in November 2007, the TOP500 list has enabled analysis of multiple aspects of supercomputer design. In this comparative and retrospective study, we examine all of the available data contained in these two lists through November 2012 and propose a novel representation and analysis of the data, highlighting several major evolutionary trends.