USA · decommissioned · classified

ASCI Q

Also known as ASCI Q, AlphaServer SC45

Operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory at Los Alamos Strategic Computing Complex .

Phase 1 seed dataset, compiled by hand. These rows were built from public operator, laboratory and vendor sources. A mechanical second-reader pass has since fetched every cited source: 32 of 52 systems have a readable citation that names them, and 4 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: 13.88 TFlop/s
Rpeak: 20.48 TFlop/s
Rmax ÷ Rpeak: 67.8%
Cores: 8,192
Power: -
Per watt: - 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.

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	- HP AlphaServer SC45	Compaq HPENYSE rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise	-	Reported	lanl.gov hpe.com
CPU	DEC Alpha 21264 (EV68) CPUs Alpha 21264 EV68 1.25GHz	Digital Equipment Corporation HPENYSE rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise	-	Reported	lanl.gov hpe.com
Interconnect	Quadrics QsNet Interconnect Quadrics QsNet	Quadrics	-	Reported	lanl.gov hpe.com
Cooling	Air cooling (CRAC/CRAH) Cooling air cooled	Compaq HPENYSE rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise	-	Reported	lanl.gov hpe.com

The read

The longest corporate chain in this dataset runs through this machine. Its Alpha processors were designed by Digital Equipment Corporation, which Compaq acquired in 1998; HP acquired Compaq in 2002, the year ASCI Q entered service; and the enterprise business became HPE in 2015. Three hops from the company that designed the silicon to the ticker that carries it today, and the Alpha architecture itself was discontinued through those transitions rather than losing on merit. Its Quadrics QsNet fabric had hardware collective support years before that became standard, and Quadrics wound down in 2009 with no acquirer at all.

Timeline

2000 Announced source
2002-11 List debut at #2 (November 2002) source
2002-11 First operational source
2007 Decommissioned source

Public list appearances

Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.

#2: TOP500, November 2002 →

Site & facility

Los Alamos Strategic Computing Complex

Location: Los Alamos, NM, USA
Cooling: Chilled water
Commissioned: 1993

lanl.gov

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.

One cited source was readable and does not mention this system; another could not be read because the host returned a bot challenge. The unreadable one may well be fine, so this is weaker evidence than a corroborated row and much stronger than an unsupported one. See how this check works.

Cited source	Result	Found on the page
hpe.com	does not name this system	-
lanl.gov	blocked our fetch	-

Checked 2026-09-08 by pnpm verify. Re-run it and the table changes with the web.