San Diego Supercomputer Center

What San Diego Supercomputer Center does

San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is an Organized Research Unit of UC San Diego founded in 1985 as one of the National Science Foundation's original supercomputer centers. It architects and operates high-performance computing (HPC) systems, petabyte-scale storage, and AI-integrated computing environments for academic researchers, federal agencies (NSF, DOE, NIH), and industry partners. Core systems include Expanse (5+ PFlop/s, 728 AMD EPYC nodes with NVIDIA V100 GPUs), Voyager (Intel Gaudi AI compute), SDSC Cloud (5.5 PB initial capacity, S3/Swift-compatible), Sherlock Secure Cloud (SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA-compliant), the Triton Shared Computing Cluster (NIST 800-171 compliant), and Cosmos for accelerator democratization. The center also operates the National Research Platform (NRP), a distributed AI-oriented infrastructure spanning 88 institutions across 129 geographic locations, along with research divisions in computational seismology (HPGeoC), wildfire modeling (WIFIRE), internet data analysis (CAIDA), and science gateways (CIPRES, OpenTopography) built on the open-source Hubzero platform.

SDSC's business model is grant-funded rather than commercially revenue-driven. Primary inflows come from federal research grants (NSF, DOE, NIH) and state funding (California Energy Commission), with modest fee-based revenue from storage services ($3.25/month per 100GB), trial accounts, and training programs. Distribution is via the ACCESS national allocation program, the HPC@UC partnership for University of California researchers, the CENIC AIR initiative for California community colleges and state universities, and direct industry service requests. SDSC holds no private investors and is governed by UC San Diego and the UC Board of Regents; in 2024 it was integrated into the newly established Halıcıoğlu School of Data Science and Computing, supported by a combined $125 million in philanthropic giving.

The customer and partner base spans academic researchers across UC and the broader U.S. research community, federal program offices, and select industry engagements including General Atomics (FEDER fusion energy data platform), Iron Horse Vineyards (precision agriculture digital twin), and multi-institution medical consortia (AI-driven prostate cancer radiation therapy). Notable recent product launches include the HiAER-Spike neuromorphic computing platform (160M neurons, 40B synapses), the CFDE Cloud Workspace for NIH biomedical datasets, and an Alderbuck Energy solid-state transformer demonstration for AI data center power efficiency under California Energy Commission funding. SDSC has received HPCwire industry recognition in 10+ consecutive years and was recognized in the NSF NAIRR Pilot program in 2024.

Name

San Diego Supercomputer Center

Legal name

San Diego Supercomputer Center

Website

https://sdsc.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

1985

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

251–500 employees

Short description

SDSC is a UC San Diego research unit operating supercomputers, petabyte-scale storage, and the National Research Platform (88 institutions, 129 locations) for academic, federal, and industry researchers, funded primarily by NSF, DOE, and state grants.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

High-Performance Computing Infrastructure

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518210)

SIC

Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373), Computer Communications Equipment (3576), Computer Storage Devices (3572)

akta.pro primary industry

HPC Storage & Parallel File Systems (Lustre/GPFS/Object) (HDACAOAF)

akta.pro secondary industries

Storage Virtualization & Software-Defined Storage (SDS) (HDABAEAF), Software-Defined Interconnect (SDI) / SD-WAN Cloud Gateways (HDABALAF), Private Cloud Networking & SDN/NFV Management (HDABABAK), SAN Storage Arrays (HDABAEAA)

Keywords

• High-performance computing
• Research computing infrastructure
• Scientific data management
• Cloud storage services
• Computational consulting

Headquarters

HQ city

La Jolla

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Federal Research Grants: Primary funding from National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and other federal agencies for HPC infrastructure and research projects.
2. State Funding: Funding from California Energy Commission and other state agencies for specific projects such as energy infrastructure testing.
3. Computing Services Revenue: Fee-based access to HPC resources for researchers, including storage services starting at $3.25/month per 100GB.
4. Educational Programs: Revenue from training programs, summer institutes, and workforce development initiatives.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

SDSC operates and provides access to high-performance computing (HPC) supercomputers (Expanse, Voyager, NRP, Triton Shared Computing Cluster), secure and compliant cloud storage (SDSC Cloud, Sherlock Secure Cloud), and complementary research computing services including consulting, data management, regulatory compliance support, science gateways, and training. These resources serve academic researchers, industry partners, and government researchers across scientific and engineering disciplines.

Product overview

San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) operates as a platform of high-performance computing systems and services. The core product portfolio includes Expanse (5+ PFlop/s supercomputer with AMD EPYC processors and NVIDIA V100 GPUs), the National Research Platform (distributed AI infrastructure across 88 institutions), SDSC Cloud (petabyte-scale storage with S3/Swift API support), Sherlock Secure Cloud (SOC 2 compliant secure cloud), Voyager and Cosmos (AI-focused accelerator systems), and Triton Shared Computing Cluster (with NIST 800-171 compliance). Legacy systems include Gordon (first flash-memory supercomputer) and Data Oasis (Lustre parallel file system). Supporting infrastructure includes science gateways like CIPRES and OpenTopography, research laboratories such as HPGeoC (computational seismology) and WIFIRE (wildfire modeling), and CAIDA (internet data analysis). These systems are supported by consulting, data management, HPC, storage, and training services.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Expanse
• National Research Platform (NRP)
• SDSC Cloud
• Sherlock Secure Cloud
• Triton Shared Computing Cluster (TSCC)
• Voyager
• Cosmos
• Gordon
• Data Oasis
• Hubzero Software Platform
• OpenTopography Science Gateway
• CIPRES Science Gateway
• HPC and Data Science Consulting Services
• Data Center Colocation Services
• HPC@UC Program
• ACCESS Program Participation
• CENIC AIR Distributed AI Infrastructure

Quantifiable outcome

• 4% energy-efficiency improvement targeted with solid-state transformer deployment
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

AI capability8 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

13 partnerships are on record, tiered core, major, minor and flagship.

• Alderbuck EnergycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 24 June 2026Alderbuck Energy will deploy its Nexus Power Unit solid-state transformer at SDSC as part of a California Energy Commission-funded project testing high-voltage DC power architecture for AI data centers, targeting 4% energy efficiency improvement and 50%+ footprint reduction.
• San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 24 June 2026Project partner in the solid-state transformer deployment at SDSC, contributing to the flexible load-capacity planning tool for California policymakers and utilities.
• Good For Others FoundationminorOthers · 24 June 2026Foundation partner supporting the solid-state transformer project and flexible load-capacity planning tool development.
• CENIC (Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 14 May 2026SDSC and CENIC are developing CENIC AIR, a distributed statewide AI infrastructure designed to provide equitable access to advanced computing for California's 116 community colleges and 23 California State Universities. Under this model, colleges own their hardware while SDSC and CENIC handle centralized operations, security, and support.
• Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 26 March 2026TACC collaborated with Johns Hopkins University, Penn State University, and SDSC to launch the CFDE Cloud Workspace, expanding access to biomedical datasets from the NIH Common Fund. The platform aims to democratize data analysis with advanced computational tools and multi-cloud architecture.
• Johns Hopkins UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 26 March 2026Partnership in CFDE Cloud Workspace to expand access to NIH Common Fund biomedical datasets through multi-cloud architecture.
• Penn State UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 26 March 2026Partnership in CFDE Cloud Workspace to democratize access to NIH Common Fund biomedical datasets.
• General AtomicsflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 16 September 2025General Atomics leads the FEDER initiative (Fusion Energy Data Ecosystem and Repository) to create a standardized national data platform for fusion energy research. SDSC plays a key role in the multimillion-dollar DOE-funded project to unite scattered research data from national laboratories, academic institutions, and industry to accelerate commercial fusion power development.
• Lawrence Livermore National LaboratorycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 5 September 2025Partner in the $5M DOE SHAPE Center project to develop impact-resistant metamaterials. LLNL provides supercomputing resources alongside SDSC for computational modeling.
• Colorado School of MinescoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 5 September 2025Multidisciplinary team partner in SHAPE Center developing impact-resistant metamaterials with nonlinear properties to dissipate kinetic energy.
• Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSDSC collaborates with SCEC on state-of-the-art earthquake simulation using HPC resources, including record-setting Magnitude 8.0 simulations and ongoing seismic research.
• UC San Diego Halıcıoğlu School of Data Science and ComputingflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerSDSC is integrated into the new Halıcıoğlu School of Data Science and Computing, backed by $125 million in combined giving, to create one of the most advanced university computing operations in the United States.
• OpenTopographycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSDSC hosts OpenTopography, which received $4 million NSF award to support AI-ready access to topographic data for research and education.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA): NCSA at the University of Illinois is a peer NSF-funded HPC center with comparable scale (Blue Waters, Delta, IL-HPC), similar academic and federal funding model, and overlapping industry partnership programs.
• National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC): NERSC at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is the primary scientific HPC facility for DOE Office of Science, operating Perlmutter. Directly comparable in mission and federal funding structure to SDSC.
• Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF): OLCF at Oak Ridge National Laboratory operates the Frontier supercomputer — the most powerful in the world. While a DOE national lab rather than NSF-funded, OLCF directly competes for federal HPC allocations and large-scale scientific workloads alongside SDSC.
• Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF): ALCF at Argonne National Laboratory operates the Aurora exascale system under DOE. Comparable to SDSC in mission (scientific HPC), but with larger federal footprint and exascale-class resources.
• Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC): PSC is a joint Carnegie Mellon / University of Pittsburgh HPC center with comparable NSF mission, Bridges and Neocortex systems, and similar academic user base to SDSC.
• Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC): TACC at UT Austin is a direct peer operating national-scale HPC systems (Stampede, Frontera, Lonestar6) for academic researchers. Already identified as a co-partner with SDSC on the CFDE Cloud Workspace biomedical platform.
• ACCESS Cyberinfrastructure: ACCESS is the NSF-funded consolidated allocation and cyberinfrastructure program that pools SDSC, TACC, NCSA, PSC, and other center resources. SDSC participates in ACCESS as both a resource provider and allocator, making it both a peer and a channel.

Broad incumbents

• Microsoft Azure HPC: Azure offers HB-series and ND-series HPC VMs competing for the same AI and scientific compute workloads SDSC serves. While commercial and not academically focused, Azure is the primary commercial alternative for institutions weighing hyperscale vs. SDSC.
• Google Cloud HPC: Google Cloud offers A2/G2 GPU VMs and HPC-friendly storage, with a Google Cloud Research credits program for academia. Comparable commercial alternative for AI and HPC workloads that SDSC supports via NRP and Expanse.
• AWS ParallelCluster / HPC on AWS: AWS provides HPC services (ParallelCluster, Batch, EC2 GPU instances) with significant academic discount programs. Represents the broadest commercial alternative for SDSC's commodity compute workloads.

Market position

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat7 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/SDSC_UCSD
• Facebookfacebook.com/SanDiegoSupercomputerCenter
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/san-diego-supercomputer-center

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about San Diego Supercomputer Center