Compute Canada

Compute Canada
Name	Compute Canada
Type	Research computing consortium
Founded	2011
Headquarters	Canada
Services	High Performance Computing, Data Storage, Cloud, Research Software

Compute Canada Compute Canada is a national consortium that provided advanced research computing resources and services to Canadian researchers and institutions. It coordinated access to high-performance computing systems, data storage, software support, and training across provincial research networks and universities. The consortium operated in collaboration with regional partners and federal agencies to support research in fields ranging from genomics and climate science to astrophysics and artificial intelligence.

History

Compute Canada traces roots to earlier regional HPC initiatives such as the SharcNet partnership and the WestGrid consortium, which emerged alongside projects like CANARIE and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation investments. In the 2000s, national-scale efforts including SciNet and CLUMEQ expanded capacity, paralleling developments at institutions like the University of Toronto, Université de Montréal, and the University of British Columbia. The formal federation consolidated resources during the 2010s, contemporaneous with federal funding rounds involving the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Major procurement cycles mirrored acquisitions at centers such as Compute Ontario and international peers like XSEDE and PRACE.

Organization and Governance

The consortium’s governance model connected provincial nodes hosted by universities and research centres including McGill University, University of Alberta, University of Calgary, and Queen's University. A board and advisory committees engaged stakeholders such as the Tri-Agency councils, representatives from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, and provincial research networks like ORION and ACORN-NS. Operational oversight involved technical directors drawn from facilities such as WestGrid, Eastern Canada Research Grid, and regional data centres at institutions such as Simon Fraser University and Dalhousie University. Funding and policy were influenced by national bodies including Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and bi-national collaborations with agencies like NSF-aligned projects.

Infrastructure and Services

The infrastructure portfolio comprised supercomputers, cloud platforms, and large-scale archives deployed at partner sites like the SciNet data centre, the Graham (supercomputer)-class installations, and other HPC clusters named after regional initiatives. Services included batch scheduling with systems akin to SLURM, parallel file systems similar to Lustre, research software support for packages used in labs at McMaster University and Université Laval, and data management aligned with policies from repositories such as Dataverse and practices at the Canadian Research Knowledge Network. Compute capacity supported workflows in genomics pipelines used at The Hospital for Sick Children, climate modelling groups tied to the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, and astronomy pipelines associated with the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre.

Research and Education Programs

Compute Canada enabled research programs spanning projects funded by Genome Canada, Canada Foundation for Innovation, and multidisciplinary teams in collaboration with institutes like Perimeter Institute and The Fields Institute. Training and education efforts involved workshops, bootcamps, and partnerships with initiatives such as Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and university courses at McGill University and University of Waterloo. Fellowship and internship programs intersected with career development schemes at labs affiliated with National Research Council Canada and summer schools modeled after events at CERN and Argonne National Laboratory.

Partnerships and Collaborations

Collaborations extended to provincial networks and international infrastructures, working closely with entities like CANARIE, ORION, ACENET, and global partners including XSEDE, PRACE, and NeSI. Project alliances included domain-specific centres such as the Canadian Light Source, TRIUMF, and clinical genomics centres like BC Children's Hospital Research Institute. Compute Canada engaged vendor partnerships for procurements with companies active in research computing ecosystems and cooperated with publishers and data repositories like PubMed Central and Zenodo for data sharing policies.

Impact and Notable Projects

The consortium supported high-profile projects in infectious disease modelling linked to teams at Institut Pasteur-affiliated collaborations and public health units, climate research with groups participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, and cosmology research connected to surveys like the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope programs and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Contributions enabled genomics studies from consortia such as International Cancer Genome Consortium partners at Canadian hospitals, machine learning research at labs like Vector Institute, and computational chemistry applications at institutes such as PerkinElmer-partnered groups. The impact manifested in publications across journals including Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and in training outcomes for students moving to positions at institutions like Facebook AI Research and DeepMind.

Category:Research computing in Canada