Calcul Québec has deployed a new supercomputer to power research in Canada. With over 28,000 compute cores and 688 NVIDIA V100 GPUs, the new Béluga system is located at the École de technologie supérieure in Montreal. Béluga was first made available at the beginning of April and is now the main high performance computing infrastructure in the province.
Not only do we provide important computing capacity, but Calcul Québec also helps researchers harness this advanced infrastructure,” said Suzanne Talon, CEO for Calcul Québec. “Our team’s expertise is essential to quality research,“ .
Béluga’s name refers to the iconic white whale found in the St. Lawrence River. It is the latest addition to Compute Canada’s network of supercomputers, which includes Cedar at Simon Fraser University, Arbutus at University of Victoria, Niagara at University of Toronto and Graham at University of Waterloo. Preparation of this valuable resource was a collective effort by Calcul Québec’s teams at McGill University, Université de Montréal, Université Laval and Université de Sherbrooke.
First used principally in physics and chemistry, Advanced Research Computing is now pivotal in most research areas,” stated Pierre-Étienne Jacques, Chief Science Officer for Calcul Québec and one of 2,300 users relying on the organization’s resources and expertise. Supercomputers are used today in environment, engineering, social sciences, humanities, and life sciences including genomics and neuroscience. Furthermore, large computing capacity has also fostered advances in the field of artificial intelligence by Québec researchers.
Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of Economy and Innovation for the Government of Québec declares, “Our government is proud of its $12.8 million contribution in support of the Béluga project. Innovation is a key element of flourishing economies and prosperous societies. Through innovation, Québec will be more productive and able to meet the future’s major challenges. Béluga is a state-of-the-art supercomputer and was made available through the exceptional teamwork of our research and teaching institutions. It will become an essential part of advancing research in Quebec.”
