The Alliance is committed to providing continuous investments and improvements in Canada’s digital research infrastructure.
A total of $258M has been invested to allow for the upgrade of advanced research computing infrastructure at the national host sites. The new computers will be named:
- Simon Fraser University - Fir
- University of Victoria - Arbutus
- University of Toronto - Trillium
- The University of Waterloo - Nibi
- McGill University - Rorqual
This joint investment will provide researchers across Canada with an overall improved and enhanced user experience through increased storage capacity, speed, and overall enhanced compute capacity.
As a result of technology improvements today compared to the previous infrastructure, this joint investment will provide researchers across Canada with an overall improved and enhanced user experience through increased storage capacity, speed, and overall, 2-3X enhanced compute capacity. An example of this in action is the new Trillium system will offer approximately three times the raw compute power, significant new GPU capacity, and storage capacity is expected to increase by at least 80%.
This project has also placed focus around increasing support and training highly qualified staff in the ecosystem (a total of 20 staff have been added this last fiscal from the extending user support initiative), developing training materials, and expanding the training scope. Through this investment we are now offering AI training through ACENET and Calcul Québec.
These leading-edge technology site upgrades also provide positive environmental impacts. The new computing infrastructure harnesses leading-edge technology to reduce cooling costs and utilize water rather than air resulting in more efficient and sustainable systems for the future. For instance, the University of Toronto has installed a new warm water loop, with a dry chiller, which will result in a more efficient data centre overall. At the University of Waterloo, they are also repurposing and capturing the heat generated to heat the adjacent building (Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre).
The Alliance and our sites are focused on national digital research sovereignty and are proud to have worked with some incredible Canadian companies like Hypertec based out of Montreal and Waterloo with state-of-the-art mineral cooled technology and a strong commitment to the environment in areas spanning the organization.
Launch timing
This spring we celebrate significant milestones on the project journey as sites complete the system builds and acceptance testing with an anticipated mid-summer go live for the infrastructure to all come fully online.