Meet Siku, our cluster for regional priorities and industry usage.
Installed in late 2019, ACENET’s Siku (meaning “sea ice” in Inuktitut) cluster was funded in large part by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) with the intention of generating regional economic benefits through industry engagement, while recognizing the important work that ACENET does for academic research in the region. The system is managed in a manner which leads it to be financially partially self-sustaining under a not-for-profit organization model.
The priority for Siku is paid industry usage with some academia able to tap into unused capacity. Academic researchers may also access the pay-for-use model if they require the same priority as industry on Siku.
Meet Siku:
- 4500 cores with Intel CPUs
- NVIDIA GPUs to power AI/Machine Learning projects
- A high-throughput low-latency EDR Infiniband interconnect
- A 1.5 PB parallel filesystem with data protected by regular tape back-ups
- 100 Tflops at peak speed
- Stable and secure backup system
- An extensive range of software is available, but you may need to provide your own license if you’re using commercial products.
Technical help Technical specifications
Siku is not intended to replace academic researcher use of the national infrastructure, but rather to accommodate needs and priorities that cannot be well met by these systems. Academic researchers can request access to Siku via a light-weight application form to determine if the system is the right fit for your needs.
Access will be reviewed annually in April.
