Cheyenne (supercomputer)

Cheyenne (supercomputer). Cheyenne was a petaflops-scale supercomputer operated by the National Center for Atmospheric Research at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Dedicated in 2016, it served as a primary resource for the United States research community in the earth system sciences, supporting advanced modeling and simulation. The system was decommissioned in 2023 after seven years of service, having been succeeded by the more powerful NCAR system named Derecho.

Overview

The deployment of Cheyenne was a collaborative effort led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and funded primarily by the National Science Foundation. It was housed in the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center, a facility specifically built for it through a partnership with the state of Wyoming, the University of Wyoming, and entities like Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power Company. Its primary mission was to dramatically increase computing power for the U.S. academic community studying complex phenomena such as climate change, severe weather, wildfire behavior, and solar storms. The system's name pays homage to its host city, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Hardware and architecture

Cheyenne was built by SGI (later Hewlett Packard Enterprise) and was based on a massively parallel cluster computing architecture. Its compute nodes were powered by Intel Xeon E5-2697v4 (Broadwell) processors, with a total of 145,152 CPU cores. The system utilized a high-performance InfiniBand interconnect fabric to facilitate rapid communication between its thousands of nodes. It was supported by a centralized Lustre parallel file system, providing 40 petabytes of high-speed storage, and was integrated with a separate IBM system called Geyser for data analysis and visualization tasks.

Performance and capabilities

At its deployment in 2016, Cheyenne achieved a peak performance of 5.34 petaflops, making it one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world dedicated to geoscience research. It ranked #20 on the TOP500 list upon its debut. The system's substantial memory, totaling 313 terabytes, and its high-speed interconnect allowed researchers to run extremely high-resolution global models. Key computational projects included the Community Earth System Model, hurricane prediction simulations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and research into air quality and water resources by universities across the United States.

Operational history and usage

Cheyenne entered full production in January 2017, managed by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory at NCAR. It allocated millions of core-hours annually to hundreds of research projects through the NSF's XSEDE program and NCAR's own allocation process. Notable scientific campaigns supported included the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program and studies for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The system maintained high reliability and availability until its retirement in January 2023, after completing its planned operational lifecycle and being replaced by the new Derecho supercomputer at the same facility.

Impact and significance

Cheyenne significantly advanced the frontiers of climate modeling and weather prediction, enabling simulations at unprecedented spatial resolutions that improved the understanding of tornado genesis, arctic amplification, and ocean acidification. Its computational power contributed directly to major international assessments, including those by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The partnership model for its hosting facility, the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center, became a benchmark for federal-state-university collaboration in supporting major research infrastructure. Cheyenne's seven-year service legacy cemented its role as a critical national asset for environmental science.

Category:Supercomputers Category:National Center for Atmospheric Research Category:Computers introduced in 2016 Category:Science and technology in Wyoming