Quebec researchers get huge shared-memory supercomputer

Montreal, QC – The Altix 4700, said to be the most powerful shared-memory supercomputer in Canada, is now available to 350 scientists in Quebec, due to an in-kind contribution from SGI Canada to the Quebec Network for High Performance Computing (RQCHP).

RQCHP comprises five university-level institutions (Universit de Montral, Universit de Sherbrooke, Concordia University, cole Polytechnique and Bishops University).

The RQCHP now possess the Altix 4700 supercomputer which has 384 dual-core processors (768 cores) and 1,536 gigabyte of random-access memory. It will vastly increase the capacity and performance of Quebecs existing pool of high-performance computing systems. In theory, the Altix 4700 is capable of performing 4,9 Teraflops (a teraflop equals one trillion operations per second). The powerful new SGI system alone represents 30% of the total performance capacity of the RQCHP.

What makes SGIs help so important is that it will allow many research centres in Quebec to be competitive in an environment where technology is changing very rapidly, says Luc Vinet, Universit de Montral Rector.