Japan has always had to deal with natural disasters as the island is located along an area where several tectonic plates meet. The country is highly vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and natural disasters. These have only been exacerbated due to climate change.

Tech company Fujitsu has unveiled a new supercomputer system provided to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) for use in linear rainband forecasting, according to a company release.

A weather phenomenon, linear rainbands are cumulonimbus clouds that are slow-moving or stationary. Leading to heavy rains they have picked up over the sea. The new supercomputer system, which began operations on March 1, will be able to forecast natural disasters six to twelve hours in advance.

Using the supercomputer 'Fugaku', JMA has been working on its linear rainband forecasting technology since June 2022. The results will be leveraged in the new system.

The new supercomputer system is based on the "Fujitsu Supercomputer PRIMEHPC FX1000" which features the same A64FX CPU as the supercomputer 'Fugaku', jointly developed by RIKEN and is known for its high performance and reliability. These features will help improve the accuracy of its linear rainband forecasting.

The new supercomputer system consists of 24 racks (12 racks each for the main and sub-systems) and reaches a theoretical peak performance of about 31.1 petaflops. The storage system comprises a total capacity of 42.3 petabytes.

The new system is currently installed at Fujitsu's data center. It is safeguarded against various disasters, including earthquakes and flooding, to "support business continuity through stable operation management around the clock".

"With the new system, Fujitsu will support the JMA in its efforts to provide more accurate and rapid forecasts, allowing authorities to improve preparedness for heavy rain events and offer earlier warnings in case of disasters," the company said.

Fujitsu plans to support further activities of JMA - An Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System is currently underway.

According to interestingengineering.com