Supercomputers/Systems/NOAA Surge
USA · operational · hpc
NOAA Surge
Also known as Surge
Operated by NOAA .
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
- 1.64 PFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 2.04 PFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 80.3%
- Cores
- 48,960
- Power
- 956.25 kW
- Per watt
- 1.7 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 NOAA Surge, and those in USA. 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 | 1.64 PFlop/s | #62 of 230 · top 27% | #157 of 332 · top 47% |
| Energy efficiency | 1.7 GF/W | #111 of 180 · bottom 40% | #89 of 162 · bottom 46% |
| Rmax ÷ Rpeak | 80.3 % | #79 of 226 · top 35% | #106 of 331 · top 32% |
| Power draw | 956 kW | #50 of 182 · top 27% | #63 of 171 · top 36% |
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 | - Cray XC40 | Cray HPENYSE
rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise | - | Reported | top500.orgnextplatform.com |
| CPU | Intel Xeon E5-2690 v3 CPUs x86-64 · 12C · 2.6 GHz · 22 nm · 135 W Intel Xeon E5-2690v3 12C 2.6GHz | Intel | - | Reported | top500.org |
| Interconnect | Cray Aries Interconnect Dragonfly · About 10 GB/s per direction · Around 1 microsecond Aries interconnect | Cray HPENYSE
rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise | - | Reported | top500.org |
| Operating system | Cray Linux Environment Operating systems Linux, Cray-customised · Proprietary layer over open-source Linux Cray Linux Environment | Cray HPENYSE
rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise | - | Reported | top500.org |
Engineering, funding and access
What NOAA Surge runs on, who paid for it and how people get time on it. Each line carries who said it and when.
Hardware
| Item | Detail | As of | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compute nodes | 2,048 nodesHaswell Xeon E5 nodes of the Cray XC40 at Orlando, Florida, about 2.06 PFlop/s peak per site. Article text is ambiguous on whether 2,048 is per site. | 2016-01 | Press report | nextplatform.com |
| Interconnect and topology | Cray AriesThe article's chart lists FDR InfiniBand for the XC40s, conflicting with its text. | 2016-01 | Press report | nextplatform.com |
Software
| Item | Detail | As of | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parallel filesystem | IBM GPFS, 8.1 PB shared parallel file system | 2016-01 | Press report | nextplatform.com |
| Job scheduler | IBM LSF | 2016-01 | Press report | nextplatform.com |
| Programming and software stack | Modified SUSE Linux Enterprise Server | 2016-01 | Press report | nextplatform.com |
Funding
| Item | Detail | As of | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Funded by | NOAA, through the IBM WCOSS operational contract and a one-time 2013 Hurricane Sandy relief appropriation | 2016-01 | Press report | nextplatform.com |
| Procurement | Cray XC40 resold by IBM under the WCOSS contract; USD 44.5 million for the Luna and Surge pair; accepted December 2015 as the backup site to RestonThe cost covers both systems together. | 2016-01 | Press report | nextplatform.com |
The read
The twin of Luna (noaa-luna): a Cray XC40 with Xeon E5-2690v3 processors and the Aries interconnect, accepted by NOAA in December 2015 alongside the older iDataPlex clusters Tide and Gyre (ncep-tide, ncep-gyre). TOP500 lists it one rank above Luna on every list from November 2015 (rank 42) to June 2021 (rank 473) with the same 48,960 cores, 1.635 PFlop/s Rmax and 956.25 kW. Next Platform gives the combined operational capacity of the new and old machines as 5.78 PFlop/s, split evenly at 2.89 PFlop/s per center. The two sources agree on the hardware generation but not on peak (2.06 PFlop/s against TOP500's 2.04 PFlop/s). Tier is reported.
Timeline
- 2015-11 List debut at #42 (November 2015) source
- 2015-12 First operational source
- 2015-12 NOAA accepted the Cray XC40 pair after fall 2015 testing alongside the iDataPlex clusters, with operational models moving over in early 2016 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
- 2026-10-17 NOAA Surge added from its source pages
Nearby in scale
The machines closest to NOAA Surge by Rmax, smaller to larger.
- NOAA Luna · USA, operational · 1.64 PFlop/s
- Occigen · France, upgraded · 1.63 PFlop/s
- Bell (Purdue) · USA, operational · 1.62 PFlop/s
- Cumulus Cascade Lake · United Kingdom, operational · 1.64 PFlop/s
- ARCHER · United Kingdom, decommissioned · 1.64 PFlop/s
- Endeavor · USA, upgraded · 1.65 PFlop/s
Related systems
Same operator
Source check
We fetched this system's own citations and recorded whether each page actually mentions it. This is a corroboration signal, not a fact check, and it is published so you can see how well the sourcing holds up rather than take it on trust.
| Cited source | Result | Found on the page |
|---|---|---|
| nextplatform.com | names system and part | Intel Xeon E5-2690 v3, Cray Aries, Cray Linux Environment |
| top500.org | names system and part | Intel Xeon E5-2690 v3, Cray Aries, Cray Linux Environment |
Checked 2026-10-18 by pnpm verify. Re-run it and the table changes with the web.
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.