Supercomputers/Systems/Turing (IDRIS)
France · decommissioned · hpc
Turing (IDRIS)
Also known as IDRIS Blue Gene/Q
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: 1092 of 1153 systems have a readable citation that names them, and 40 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
- 1.07 PFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 1.26 PFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 85.3%
- Cores
- 98,304
- Power
- 493.12 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.
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 | - | Verified | top500.orgfr.wikipedia.org |
| CPU | IBM PowerPC A2 (Power BQC) CPUs PowerPC A2 · 18C · 1.6 GHz · 45 nm · 55 W Power BQC 16C 1.6GHz, 65,536 cores initially and 98,304 after expansion | IBM | - | Reported | top500.org |
| Interconnect | IBM BlueGene/Q 5D torus Interconnect 5D torus · 2 GB/s per link per direction Custom Blue Gene/Q interconnect | IBM | - | Reported | top500.org |
The read
IBM Blue Gene/Q acquired by GENCI for the CNRS IDRIS centre at Orsay and named for Alan Turing. TOP500 lists it from June 2012 (29th, 65,536 cores, 690.2 TFlop/s) and, after an expansion to 98,304 Power BQC 1.6 GHz cores, at 1.073 PFlop/s Rmax and 1.258 PFlop/s Rpeak, last appearing in June 2019 at 463rd. French Wikipedia's Ada et Turing article confirms the IBM Blue Gene/Q design, 65,536 cores and the 836 TFlop/s peak of the initial configuration, and says the system has served French researchers since 2013. The expanded 98,304-core figures are TOP500-only, so the tier is reported. No shutdown date is recorded.
Timeline
Public list appearances
Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.
Change history
- 2026-10-02 Added Turing, IDRIS Blue Gene/Q
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 |
|---|---|---|
| fr.wikipedia.org | names system only | - |
| top500.org | names system and part | IBM BlueGene/Q 5D torus |
Checked 2026-10-09 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.