Supercomputers/Systems/PIK IBM SP2
Germany · decommissioned · hpc
PIK IBM SP2
Also known as Potsdam Institute SP-2
Operated by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research .
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 1540 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
- 9.5 GFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 12.8 GFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 74.6%
- Cores
- 48
- 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 | - IBM SP2/48 | IBM | - | Reported | top500.orgpik-potsdam.de |
| CPU | - IBM POWER2 66 MHz, 48 nodes at first, later 77 | IBM | 48 reported | Reported | pik-potsdam.detop500.org |
| Operating system | IBM AIX Operating systems Unix (System V-derived) · Proprietary IBM AIX | IBM | - | Reported | top500.org |
The read
IBM SP2 with 48 POWER2 66 MHz nodes running AIX at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Rmax 9.53 and Rpeak 12.77 GFlop/s on the system page (9.1 in the single list appearance, rank 78 in November 1994) (https://www.top500.org/system/169626/). PIK's own IT history page says that after the IBM SP-1 had to be upgraded quickly, a 48-node SP-2 was installed in 1994 and later enlarged to 77 nodes including 8 Power-2 SC nodes, with 64 MB of memory per processor at first; that it marked the institute's first entry in the TOP500 (rank 78, November 1994); and that it was decommissioned in 2000, followed by a 200-processor Power3 SP that ranked 121st in June 2001 and a 240-CPU Power4 cluster delivered in January 2003. TOP500 shows the growth as further PIK SP2 entries, for example 43 cores in 1995 (https://www.top500.org/system/169622/); the core counts there (48, then 43) do not follow PIK's 48 to 77 account and are left unreconciled. The decommissioning year comes from the operator page.
Timeline
- 1994 First operational source
- 1994-11 List debut at #78 (November 1994) source
- 2000 Decommissioned 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
- 2026-10-18 Added PIK IBM SP2 (pik)
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.
Programming a supercomputer
The software stack beneath the application, and why the OS is now a sovereignty signal as much as a technical choice.