Fujitsu to provide Canon with supercomputer to power 'no-prototype' manufacturing

Canon Inc will be receiving a new supercomputer to contribute to its no-prototype development initiative in manufacturing, with Fujitsu to deliver the system in the first half of 2021.

According to Fujitsu, the system consists of a Fujitsu Supercomputer PRIMEHPC FX1000 unit, which it has boasted can harness techology from the world's fastest supercomputer, Fugaku, which was jointly developed by Riken and Fujitsu.

With 192 nodes, the new supercomputer is expected to achieve a theoretical computational performance of 648.8 teraflops.

See also: How the world's largest and fastest supercomputers are being used to understand the coronavirus

Canon hopes that upon completion, the supercomputer will play a key role in its "no-prototype" product development initiative, which is a company-wide plan to only build necessary prototypes and eliminate useless product prototyping through the use of testing virtualisation and simulation technology.

Canon will also leverage 3D CAD data in analytical simulations to evaluate various aspects of proposed products, including functionality and ease of manufacturing. 

As part of the new system, Fujitsu will deploy the Fujitsu Server Primergy systems and Fujitsu Storage Eternus systems as peripheral devices.

"As an important part of Canon's product development cycle, this system will enable larger-scale analyses and simulations in impact analysis experiments evaluating damage to or deformation of a potential product when dropped, including simulations with over 100 million elements, a challenge for previous systems to handle," the companies said in a statement.

"The new system will also support airflow analysis and electromagnetic wave analysis."

The company currently operates two Fujitsu supercomputers, the PRIMEHPC FX10 and PRIMEHPC FX100.

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