Supercomputers/Systems/BGQ (SOSCIP)
Canada · decommissioned · hpc
BGQ (SOSCIP)
Also known as SOSCIP BlueGene/Q
Operated by SciNet at SciNet (University of Toronto) .
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
- 715.55 TFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 838.86 TFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 85.3%
- Cores
- 65,536
- Power
- 328.75 kW
- Per watt
- 2.2 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 BGQ (SOSCIP), and those in Canada. 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 | 715.55 TFlop/s | #58 of 193 · top 30% | #19 of 27 · bottom 32% |
| Energy efficiency | 2.2 GF/W | #19 of 149 · top 12% | #10 of 15 · bottom 37% |
| Rmax ÷ Rpeak | 85.3 % | #58 of 192 · top 30% | #9 of 27 · top 31% |
| Power draw | 329 kW | #96 of 151 · bottom 38% | #10 of 16 · bottom 41% |
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 | - IBM Blue Gene/Q | IBM | - | Reported | top500.orgscinethpc.ca |
| CPU | IBM PowerPC A2 (Power BQC) CPUs PowerPC A2 · 18C · 1.6 GHz · 45 nm · 55 W 4,096 nodes each with one 16-core 1.6 GHz PowerPC A2 (Power BQC) | IBM | 4,096 reported | Reported | top500.orgscinethpc.ca |
Engineering, funding and access
What BGQ (SOSCIP) 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 | 4,096 nodes16-core PowerPC A2 nodes with 16 GB each, 65,536 cores in total. | 2019-06 | Operator stated | scinethpc.ca |
| Interconnect and topology | Blue Gene/Q 5D torus | 2019-06 | Operator stated | scinethpc.ca |
Software
| Item | Detail | As of | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Programming and software stack | Lightweight Linux-like node operating system with queued job access | 2019-06 | Operator stated | scinethpc.ca |
Funding
| Item | Detail | As of | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Funded by | Government of OntarioSOSCIP consortium funding. | 2019-06 | Operator stated | scinethpc.ca |
| Funded by | Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern OntarioSOSCIP consortium funding. | 2019-06 | Operator stated | scinethpc.ca |
Access
| Item | Detail | As of | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How researchers get time | SOSCIP multi-university and industry consortium users at the University of Toronto's SciNet | 2019-06 | Operator stated | scinethpc.ca |
The read
BlueGene/Q of the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP) consortium, housed at the University of Toronto's SciNet facility and funded by the Ontario Government and FedDev Ontario. SciNet's page gives installation Aug 2012 and decommissioning 30 June 2019, 4,096 nodes each with a 16-core 1.6 GHz PowerPC A2 and 16 GB RAM (65,536 cores, 262,144 hardware threads, 5D torus), and notes that a half-rack of 8,192 cores bought by the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology at the University of Alberta in late 2014 was merged in. TOP500 lists it as SOSCIP/LKSAVI/University of Toronto: 32,768 cores and 345.1 TF at rank 67 in Nov 2012 (357.78 TF later), then 65,536 cores and Rmax 715.55 TF from Nov 2014 (rank 74) to Jun 2018 (rank 499). A separate 8,192-core development system, BGQdev, was also listed in Nov 2012 and is not recorded here.
Timeline
- 2012-08 First operational source
- 2014-11 List debut at #74 (November 2014) source
- 2014-11 A half-rack of BlueGene/Q (8,192 cores) bought by the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology at the University of Alberta was integrated into the system source
- 2019-06-30 Decommissioned source
Public list appearances
Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.
Site & facility
Change history
- 2026-10-17 BGQ (SOSCIP) added from its source pages
Nearby in scale
The machines closest to BGQ (SOSCIP) by Rmax, smaller to larger.
- Cetus · USA, operational · 0.72 PFlop/s
- Zumbrota · France, operational · 0.72 PFlop/s
- Avoca · Australia, decommissioned · 0.72 PFlop/s
- Aaditya · India, operational · 0.72 PFlop/s
- Earth System Numerical Simulator · China, decommissioned · 0.74 PFlop/s
- HiPerGator 2.0 · USA, operational · 0.74 PFlop/s
Related systems
Same site
- Niagara · Canada, decommissioned, 2018
- Trillium · Canada, operational, 2025
- Killarney · Canada, operational
Same operator
- GPC (SciNet) · Canada, decommissioned, 2009
- TCS (SciNet) · Canada, decommissioned, 2009
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.
Every source cited on this page was readable, and none of them mentions this system. They are cited at page granularity, normally because no stable deep link could be found. That is a real weakness in this row and it is why the system carries a confidence tier below verified. See how this check works.
| Cited source | Result | Found on the page |
|---|---|---|
| scinethpc.ca | does not name this system | IBM PowerPC A2 (Power BQC) · counts: 4096 |
| top500.org | does not name this system | - |
Checked 2026-10-18 by pnpm verify. Re-run it and the table changes with the web.