CHPC (CSIR)

What CHPC (CSIR) does

The Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) is a division of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the South African government's statutory research body, and one of three primary pillars of the National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System (NICIS) supported by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI). Established in 2007, CHPC operates the country's flagship national high-performance computing (HPC) facility from its Cape Town data centre at CSIR Rosebank, providing free computational resources to South African academic researchers, university students, and approved commercial users.

CHPC's core technology stack comprises four production systems: (1) the Lengau supercomputer — Africa's fastest at ~1 petaflops peak performance, 24,000+ cores, 5 petabytes of Dell storage, and 56 GB/s Mellanox EDR InfiniBand interconnect; (2) a GPU cluster for accelerated parallel workloads; (3) Sebowa Cloud — an OpenStack-based private cloud with Ceph storage and up to 10 Gbps internet / 50 Gbps inter-host networking across Cape Town and (newly added) Pretoria zones; and (4) a quantum computing access hub launched in January 2025. The technology base is anchored by Dell PowerEdge servers and integrated with global HPC vendors including Intel, NVIDIA, HPE, AWS, and Mellanox.

CHPC operates as a publicly funded infrastructure provider with no commercial revenue stream — services are delivered free of charge to eligible users via a self-service portal. The organisation is sustained entirely by DSTI budget allocations routed through CSIR. Its customer base spans South African universities and research institutions across domains including bioinformatics, computational chemistry, astrophysics, gravitational wave research, and climate modelling. Beyond raw compute, CHPC runs a flagship human capital development programme — the Student Cluster Competition (SCC) — which has produced internationally competitive HPC talent (4 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze at ISC) and contributes to K-12 digital skills outreach across underserved communities.

Name

CHPC (CSIR)

Legal name

Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC)

Website

https://chpc.ac.za

Company type

Private

Founded year

2007

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

CHPC, a division of South Africa's CSIR, provides free high-performance computing resources — including Africa's fastest supercomputer (Lengau), GPU clusters, cloud, and quantum access — to South African academic researchers, university students, and approved commercial users.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

High Performance Computing Infrastructure

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)

SIC

Electronic Computers (3571)

akta.pro primary industry

Research Computing & High-Performance Computing (HPC) User Support (EDALAMAK)

akta.pro secondary industry

Quantum Cloud Infrastructure & QPU Hosting (HDAGAIAA)

Keywords

• High performance computing
• Supercomputing infrastructure
• Research computing services
• HPC cluster access
• Scientific computing platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Cape Town

HQ country

South Africa

HQ region

Africa

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Government Funding / Public Infrastructure Access: CHPC is a national cyberinfrastructure initiative funded by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI, formerly DSI) and managed by the CSIR. Services are provided free of charge to eligible South African researchers and university students. The centre generates no direct commercial revenue but is sustained through public budget allocations.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

CHPC provides free access to national high-performance computing infrastructure for South African researchers, students, and academic institutions. Core offerings include the Lengau petaflops supercomputer, a GPU-accelerated compute cluster, the Sebowa OpenStack-based private cloud, and a newly launched quantum computing access hub. Supporting services include the Student Cluster Competition, online training via Moodle, and an annual national HPC conference.

Product overview

CHPC (Centre for High Performance Computing) is a division of the CSIR providing national cyberinfrastructure as one of three pillars of South Africa's NICIS (National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System). The core product portfolio includes: (1) Lengau HPC Cluster - flagship petaflops-scale supercomputer; (2) GPU Cluster for accelerated computing; (3) Sebowa Cloud - OpenStack-based private cloud with computing, storage, and networking services; and (4) Quantum Computing Access - newly launched hub for quantum hardware access. CHPC also operates research programmes in bioinformatics, computational chemistry, astrophysics, and gravitational waves. Human capital development offerings include the Student Cluster Competition, training portals, and annual national conference.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Lengau HPC Cluster Petaflops-scale flagship HPC cluster built on Dell PowerEdge servers with Intel Xeon processors, Mellanox EDR InfiniBand (56 GB/s), and 5 petabytes of storage. Provided free to eligible South African researchers and Principal Investigators via the CHPC User Portal.
• GPU Cluster GPU-accelerated compute cluster supplementing the CPU-based Lengau cluster for parallel workloads requiring GPU acceleration. Used by South African researchers for parallelisable scientific computing.
• Sebowa Cloud Localised NICIS cloud platform providing computing (CPU and RAM), block and object storage powered by Ceph, and Software Defined Networking via OpenStack with up to 10 Gbps internet and 50 Gbps inter-host connectivity. Available via self-service portal with Cape Town and Pretoria zones.
• Quantum Computing Access Hub providing CHPC users with access to physical quantum computing resources for quantum experiments and for porting computational quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics simulations from Lengau.
• Student Cluster Competition (SCC) Annual flagship human capital development programme for undergraduate STEM students at South African universities, comprising a university selection round, a national round at the CHPC national conference, and an international round at ISC in Germany. Participation-related travel, accommodation, and catering are covered by CSIR.
• Training and Events (Online Training Portal) Online training including the Moodle learning management system at moodle.chpc.ac.za, the events portal at events.chpc.ac.za, and online HPC courses accessible to registered users for self-paced learning.
• CHPC National Conference Annual national conference (e.g., 30 Nov - 3 Dec 2025) bringing together HPC researchers and professionals across South Africa with sessions, BOFs, keynotes, and the SCC national round.

Quantifiable outcome

• 1 petaflops peak performance — 15x faster than the previous system (Tsessebe at 64.44 teraflops)
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core, minor and emerging.

• CERN / ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 June 2024CSIR, through NICIS, became a full participant in the international ALICE experiment at CERN. NICIS brings expertise and resources in HPC, large-scale data storage, and high-speed bandwidth to the project. NICIS provides the only tier-two HPC node in Africa for ALICE, enhancing computational capabilities for processing and analysing data from the Large Hadron Collider. The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation is pursuing Associate Membership with CERN, with CHPC exploring formal membership in the ATLAS experiment.
• Dell TechnologiescoreTechnology or IntegrationDell designed and delivered the Lengau supercomputer — 1,039 Dell PowerEdge servers, Dell Storage (5 petabytes), and Dell Networking ethernet switches, with Mellanox EDR InfiniBand interconnects. Dell continues to sponsor HPC equipment for the Student Cluster Competition, providing clusters featuring Intel CPUs and NVIDIA graphics cards for ISC competitions. Jim Ganthier (VP & GM, Engineered Solutions, HPC and Cloud at Dell) expressed pride in the collaboration.
• Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) / University of TexascoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerTACC hosts South African SCC teams for intensive HPC training ahead of ISC competitions. TACC provides access to Stampede 3 and Lonestar 6 supercomputers, technical training on application optimization, and best practices sharing. TACC is a key international HPC training partner for CHPC's human capital development programme.
• University of Houston-Clear LakeminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe CHPC team toured University of Houston-Clear Lake facilities during international training, meeting Dr. Shih and Dr. Lee Morin (former astronaut) to discuss quantum computing, space exploration, and interdisciplinary innovation topics.
• CERN / ATLAS ExperimentemergingStrategic or Co-development PartnerBuilding on the ALICE partnership, CHPC will explore formal membership in the ATLAS experiment at CERN, mirroring the successful model established with ALICE.
• Dell, AWS, Diplomics, Eclipse, Intel, NVIDIA, TACC, SARAO (Student Cluster Competition Sponsors)coreGTM or Marketing PartnerMultiple technology vendors sponsor the CHPC Student Cluster Competition by providing HPC hardware, cloud credits, software tools, and funding. Sponsors include Dell Technologies, Amazon Web Services, Diplomics, Eclipse Foundation, Intel, NVIDIA, TACC, SARAO, HPE, MathWorks, Opti-Num Solutions, Huawei, and DFA. These sponsors enable the competition's prize structure, travel support, and cluster hardware.
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)coreTechnology or IntegrationHPE sponsored a 3-node HPC cluster for Team CHPC at ISC 2025, featuring Intel CPUs and NVIDIA graphics cards, along with Aruba and NVIDIA networks. HPE also provided training cluster access hosted in Geneva, Switzerland for the 2025 team.

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Amazon Web Services (HPC on AWS): Commercial cloud HPC provider offering elastic compute, parallel filesystems, and cluster orchestration. Sponsors CHPC's SCC and represents the broader commercial alternative CHPC's private-sector segment competes against for high-end compute workloads.

Direct peers

• NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications): US academic HPC centre at the University of Illinois providing supercomputing resources and pioneering HPC workforce development. Highly comparable talent-development and academic-research focus.
• GENCI: French national civil HPC agency funding and coordinating access to supercomputers for French academic research. Comparable public-mandate, national-coordination role to CHPC's position within NICIS.
• Pawsey Supercomputing Centre: Australian national HPC facility providing supercomputing and data services to academic researchers. Closely comparable to CHPC in scale, government funding model, and academic-user focus within a single national jurisdiction.
• CSCS (Swiss National Supercomputing Centre): Switzerland's national HPC centre providing petascale and pre-exascale systems to academic users. Operates under a similar government-funded, national-research-infrastructure mandate with comparable user-base composition.
• Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC): German national supercomputing centre operating one of Europe's largest HPC systems for academic and applied research. Comparable in mission, government sponsorship, and breadth of scientific user community.
• Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC): US national-scale academic HPC centre operating flagship supercomputers (Stampede, Lonestar) for open research. TACC is a confirmed CHPC training partner and operates with the same academic-user mission and SCC-style talent development model.
• Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS): Spanish national supercomputing centre hosting the MareNostrum system. Operates with a similar academic-research mission, government backing, and a mix of supercomputing, cloud, and emerging-compute initiatives comparable to CHPC.
• CINECA: Italian non-profit consortium providing HPC for Italian and European academic research. Similar consortium-of-institutions governance and national academic-research service model.
• IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center: Czech Republic's national HPC centre providing supercomputing services to academic and industrial users. Closely comparable in size, government backing, and mission to support national research competitiveness.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/chpc-tech-eval
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/chpc-scc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about CHPC (CSIR)