Supercomputers/Systems/Cumulus (Cambridge)
United Kingdom · operational · hpc
Cumulus (Cambridge)
Also known as Cumulus; UK Science Cloud
Operated by University of Cambridge .
Researched with AI assistance, checked by scripts. These rows were researched by AI agents reading public operator, laboratory and vendor sources, appended by scripts and checked by automated validation; no subject-matter expert has reviewed them (how this site is made). A mechanical second-reader pass has since fetched every cited source: 1350 of 1581 systems have a readable citation that names them, and 64 are genuinely weakly sourced. Every claim carries its source and a confidence tier. Treat anything below verified as a lead, not a citation.
Measured performance
- Rmax
- 2.27 PFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 2.69 PFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 84.4%
- Cores
- 50,176
- Power
- 530 kW
- Per watt
- 4.3 GF/W
Figures are as last publicly reported for the configuration described below, not a live measurement. Where a system was upgraded in place, the post-upgrade configuration is shown and the earlier one appears in the timeline.
How it compares
Ranked against the other machines in this dataset that report the same figure: those that first came into service within two years of Cumulus (Cambridge), and those in United Kingdom. Computed from our tables; a metric is ranked only when at least eight peers report it.
| Metric | Value | Against its era | Against its country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rmax | 2.27 PFlop/s | #118 of 223 · bottom 48% | #15 of 44 · top 33% |
| Energy efficiency | 4.3 GF/W | #62 of 133 · top 46% | #8 of 21 · top 35% |
| Rmax ÷ Rpeak | 84.4 % | #32 of 216 · top 14% | #11 of 44 · top 23% |
| Power draw | 530 kW | #76 of 137 · bottom 46% | #10 of 21 · top 45% |
Every metric is ranked largest-first, so a high power-draw rank means a big power draw, not a good one. Rmax ÷ Rpeak uses HPL-measured results only. Rankings move as machines are added; they describe this dataset, not the world.
What this machine is made of
One row per supplier relationship. “Supplier at build” is the company that shipped the part at the time; where that company has since been acquired, the parent it rolls up to today is shown beside it. That distinction is what makes ticker-level aggregation possible across a thirty-year dataset.
| Role | Part | Supplier at build | Quantity | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integrator | - Dell EMC PowerEdge C6420/C6320 | Dell Technologies | - | Reported | top500.orgtimestech.in |
| Accelerator | - Intel Xeon Phi 7210 | Intel | - | Reported | top500.org |
| CPU | - Intel Xeon Gold 6142F 16C 2.6GHz | Intel | - | Reported | top500.org |
| Interconnect | Omni-Path Architecture Interconnect Fat tree · 100 Gb/s per port · About 1 microsecond Intel Omni-Path Architecture | Intel | - | Reported | top500.orgtimestech.in |
The read
Cumulus is Cambridge's OpenStack-managed system, announced as the 'Cumulus - UK Science Cloud' in Dell EMC's SC18-week announcement of 13 November 2018: Dell EMC PowerEdge servers, Intel Xeon processors and Omni-Path, above two petaflops, delivered with the start-up StackHPC and funded with over 13 million pounds from STFC (DiRAC/IRIS), EPSRC (Tier 2) and the university. TOP500 lists a mixed Xeon Phi 7210 and Xeon Gold 6142F system of PowerEdge C6420/C6320 nodes with 50,176 cores, 2.27 PFlop/s Rmax, 2.69 PFlop/s Rpeak and 530 kW, entering 87th in November 2018 and still listed 470th in June 2024 after 12 lists. It sits beside the Peta4 CPU system (peta4) in Cambridge's research computing estate.
Timeline
- 2018 First operational source
- 2018-11 Announced source
- 2018-11 List debut at #87 (November 2018) source
Public list appearances
Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.
Change history
- 2026-10-18 Cumulus (Cambridge) added from its source pages
Nearby in scale
The machines closest to Cumulus (Cambridge) by Rmax, smaller to larger.
Related systems
Same operator
- Peta4 · United Kingdom, upgraded, 2017
- Wilkes-2 · United Kingdom, operational, 2017
- Cumulus Cascade Lake · United Kingdom, operational, 2020
- Wilkes-3 · United Kingdom, operational, 2021
- Wilkes · United Kingdom, decommissioned, 2013
- Darwin III · United Kingdom, operational, 2012
Further reading
Operating a supercomputer
Acceptance testing, why "installed" and "in production" are six months apart, and the machine lifecycle.
Inside a node
Latency-optimised versus throughput-optimised processors, NUMA, and the end of the host-to-device copy.
The interconnect
Topologies, why latency and tail behaviour matter more than bandwidth, and how the fabric market consolidated.