High Performance Computing environment upgraded to support digital government
Shared Services Canada (SSC), in collaboration with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), recently upgraded the Government of Canada’s High Performance Computing (HPC) environment. ECCC’s Meteorological Service of Canada uses components of the environment, our supercomputers, to continuously improve:
- the accuracy and timeliness of weather forecasts delivered via many channels including weather.gc.ca and the WeatherCAN mobile app
- the health, safety and economic well-being of Canadians
The upgrade will help produce more accurate extended weather forecasts and more timely and accurate modelling of the earth's atmosphere and oceans. The increased capacity provided by the upgrade will also allow ECCC to increase the resolution of weather models, translating into forecasts that are closer to local conditions.
Facts about SSC’s supercomputers
- The computing power of these 2020 supercomputers is 9.3 petaFLOPS—peta meaning 1015 and FLOPS floating point operations per second. This is 3.7 times faster than the previous supercomputers installed in 2017
- These supercomputers feature over 580 petabytes of storage. This is enough space to store over 129 million DVD-quality movies
- These supercomputers are close to 180 million times faster than ECCC’s first supercomputer, a CDC7600 bought in 1974
The smooth transition during this upgrade was a result of careful planning, preparation and collaboration between SSC and ECCC. Guided by the Government of Canada’s Digital Operations Strategic Plan and the SSC 3.0 Enterprise Approach, Shared Services Canada is working with partner departments to modernize the Government of Canada’s IT infrastructure in support of digital government for Canadians.
Next steps
Planning has already started for the next upgrade, aiming for delivery in the second half of 2022.
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