An important milestone has just been crossed for the Canadian scientific community with the commissioning of Rorqual, a latest generation supercomputer piloted by Calculation Québec. The University of Montreal, alongside several Quebec establishments, has contributed to its implementation, thus consolidating its commitment to the development of a digital research infrastructure of global caliber.
“In all scientific disciplines, high performance calculation is gaining growing importance in our ways of doing research. With Rorqual, we collectively dive a tool up to our ambitions, capable of postponing the limits of what we can explore, model, understand and create. A real accelerator of discoveries ”, underlines Sébastien Lemieux, professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular medicine of UdeM and scientific director of calculation Quebec.
Accessible to the entire Canadian research community, Rorqual is designed to support work in fields as varied as artificial intelligence, health, the environment and the humanities. With 137,000 calculation cores, 587 RAM teraoctes and 324 cutting -edge graphic accelerators, it succeeds the Superovator Béluga, now at the end of a useful life, and strengthens high performance calculation capacity.
About Rorqual
Sébastien Lemieux
Credit: Christian Brault
Rorqual joins Narval, FIR, Arbutus, Nibi, and Trillium on the list of infrastructure dedicated to Canadian research made available thanks to the Canada Digital Research Alliance. Together, these systems provide the Canadian research community with the tools necessary to deal with global competition using massive data and high performance calculation systems. Rorqual is 192nd (graphic processor [GPU – graphics processing unit]) and 242nd (central unit [CPU – central processing unit]) in the world’s top500 and 73rd (GPU) ranking in the GREEN500 ranking of June 2025.
The commissioning of Rorqual in the National Center for McGill-Calcul Québec is the result of a collective effort of Quebec Calculation teams within McGill University, Udem, Laval University, the University of Sherbrooke, Concordia University, the University of Quebec in Montreal, the School of Higher Technology, Polytechnique Montréal and HEC Montreal. The project received financial support from the Digital Research Alliance of Canada and the Quebec government. This investment is made possible thanks to the strategy for the digital research infrastructure (IRN) of innovation, science and economic development Canada.
