  The A64FX processor from Fujitsu, being designed for computational simulation
and machine learning applications, has the potential for unprecedented
performance in HPC systems. In this paper, we evaluate the A64FX by
benchmarking against a range of production HPC platforms that cover a number of
processor technologies. We investigate the performance of complex scientific
applications across multiple nodes, as well as single node and mini-kernel
benchmarks. This paper finds that the performance of the A64FX processor across
our chosen benchmarks often significantly exceeds other platforms, even without
specific application optimisations for the processor instruction set or
hardware. However, this is not true for all the benchmarks we have undertaken.
Furthermore, the specific configuration of applications can have an impact on
the runtime and performance experienced.
