Korea unveils $276 mil. 'Hangang' supercomputer

Korea has officially launched its sixth national supercomputer, named "Hangang" after the iconic Han River flowing through Seoul, to propel cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) and scientific research. The Ministry of Science and ICT and the state-run Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) marked the launch Monday at KISTI headquarters in Daejeon, the nation’s primary scientific and research hub located about 140 kilometers south of Seoul. The ceremony brought together roughly 200 leaders from across industry, academia and government research institutions. Constructed at a cost of 382.5 billion won ($276 million), Hangang replaces Nurion, the fifth-generation supercomputer deployed in 2018. Nurion ranked 11th globally at launch and supported 1,730 research projects over its eight-year lifespan. Those efforts produced 1,520 peer-reviewed papers, including 70 published in top-tier international journals such as Nature, Science and Cell. While Hangang continues running the same heavy computational simulations handled by its predecessor, such as vehicle crash t