Supercomputers/Systems/Intrepid
USA · decommissioned · hpc
Intrepid
Also known as BlueGene/P, Blue Gene/P
Operated by Argonne National Laboratory at Argonne Leadership Computing Facility .
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
- 458.61 TFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 557.06 TFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 82.3%
- Cores
- 163,840
- Power
- 1.26 MW
- Per watt
- 0.4 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 | - IBM eServer Blue Gene Solution | IBM | - | Reported | alcf.anl.govibm.com |
| CPU | IBM PowerPC 450 850MHz CPUs PowerPC 450 850MHz | IBM | - | Reported | alcf.anl.govibm.com |
| Interconnect | IBM BlueGene 3D torus Interconnect integrated 3D torus | IBM | - | Reported | alcf.anl.govibm.com |
| Cooling | Direct liquid cooling, warm water Cooling IBM BlueGene/P: water cooled | IBM | - | Reported | alcf.anl.govibm.com |
| Operating system | IBM Compute Node Kernel Operating systems Compute Node Kernel | IBM | - | Reported | alcf.anl.govibm.com |
The read
The middle generation of the BlueGene line, and with BlueGene/L and Sequoia it gives this dataset all three. The architectural argument is unchanged across them: many deliberately slow, low-power embedded cores with the interconnect on the compute chip, so the bill of materials names one company for the processor, the fabric, the kernel and the integration. Read across the three generations, BlueGene is the clearest case in the dataset of a vendor competing on efficiency rather than clock speed, and of a fabric that never appears in any spec string as a third-party product.
Timeline
- 2006 Announced source
- 2008-01 First operational source
- 2008-06 List debut at #3 (June 2008) source
- 2014 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
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
- Location
- Lemont, IL, USA
- Cooling
- Direct liquid cooling (warm water)
- Commissioned
- 2006
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 |
|---|---|---|
| alcf.anl.gov | does not name this system | IBM Compute Node Kernel, Direct liquid cooling, warm water |
| ibm.com | names system and part | IBM Compute Node Kernel |
Checked 2026-09-08 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.