National Laboratory for High Performance Computing

What National Laboratory for High Performance Computing does

NLHPC (Laboratorio Nacional de Computación de Alto Rendimiento / National Laboratory for High Performance Computing) is Chile's designated national supercomputing laboratory, established in 2011 and hosted within the Centro de Modelamiento Matemático (CMM) at the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of Universidad de Chile in Santiago. The laboratory operates the Guacolda-Leftraru cluster, described as the most powerful supercomputer in Chile and among the strongest in South America, currently configured with 27 Lenovo ThinkSystem SR645 V3 servers running dual AMD EPYC 9754 128-core CPUs (6,912 cores total, 768 GB RAM each) and 2 Lenovo ThinkSystem SR675 V3 GPU servers equipped with 6 AMD Instinct MI210 accelerators each (12 GPUs total), managed through Slurm and cooled via Lenovo Neptune water cooling. The cluster exceeds 100% of theoretical LINPACK performance and delivers 4x the prior generation's performance per watt, supporting scientific simulation, data-intensive analysis, AI/ML model training, and astronomical image processing across 40+ research disciplines.

NLHPC serves three customer segments: academia (free access funded by ANID, covering 500+ active researchers across 45 universities and approximately 65 partner institutions under the SCAI-Lab consortium), industry (fee-based access for mining, engineering, and aquaculture firms such as JRI Ingeniería, Ferrocarril de Antofagasta, and ModelaCFD), and Chilean government institutions (project-based agreements with MOP, Ministerio de Bienes Nacionales, SERNAPESCA, and SAG for wave forecasting, geostatistical disaster detection, and aquaculture management). Go-to-market combines direct account requests through an evaluation portal, a three-tiered annual training program (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced), and active event participation including CARLA, INFONOR, and the Innovation & Technology Summit.

The lab is funded primarily through recurring ANID appropriations for operations, supplemented by competitive grants (notably US$7M from Corfo for SCAI-Lab in June 2025 as part of a US$14M national AI supercomputing initiative announced by President Boric) and economic contributions from industry and government users that are reinvested into infrastructure. Revenue from academic users is structurally zero, while industry and government fees are evaluated on a compute-hours-to-contribution ratio rather than published pricing tiers. The 2025 SCAI-Lab launch and EU-LAC HPC Network agreement extend NLHPC's mandate from national research infrastructure to a regional hub for AI supercomputing tied to European partners including the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, EuroHPC JU, and RedCLARA.

Name

National Laboratory for High Performance Computing

Legal name

Laboratorio Nacional de Computación de Alto Rendimiento / National Laboratory for High Performance Computing

Website

https://nlhpc.cl

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

NLHPC operates Chile's national supercomputing laboratory, running the Guacolda-Leftraru cluster (6,912 AMD EPYC cores, 12 MI210 GPUs) from Universidad de Chile's Centro de Modelamiento Matemático in Santiago to provide HPC resources to 500+ academic researchers across 45 universities, Chilean government agencies, and industrial clients, with US$14M in new state funding committed to the SCAI-Lab AI supercomputing initiative in 2025.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

High Performance Computing Infrastructure

NAICS

Computer Facilities Management Services (541513), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Electronic Computers (3571)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYHDACAOAA

HPC Supercomputers & Turnkey Systems

Hardware, Technology & Telecom/Computing Hardware & Peripherals/High-Performance Computing (HPC) Systems

SECONDARYHDACAOAB

HPC Clusters & Scale-Out Compute (x86/ARM)

Hardware, Technology & Telecom/Computing Hardware & Peripherals/High-Performance Computing (HPC) Systems

SECONDARYHDACAOAH

HPC System Software & Resource Management (Schedulers, MPI, OS Images)

Hardware, Technology & Telecom/Computing Hardware & Peripherals/High-Performance Computing (HPC) Systems

SECONDARYHDACAOAD

AI/HPC Converged Systems (Hybrid Training/Simulation)

Hardware, Technology & Telecom/Computing Hardware & Peripherals/High-Performance Computing (HPC) Systems

SECONDARYEDALAMAK

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

Education/Student Services & Campus Operations/IT Support & Campus Helpdesk Services

SECONDARYBPAEANAJ

Infrastructure, Networking & Systems Administration Training

Business & Public Services/IT & Digital Services (Managed Services, Systems Integration)/IT Training & Technical Enablement Services

Keywords

• High performance computing
• Supercomputing services
• HPC infrastructure
• Scientific computing
• Computational research

Headquarters

HQ city

Santiago

HQ country

Chile

HQ region

Latin America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations

Revenue model

1. Government Research Funding (ANID): Primary funding source from the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID) of Chile for operational costs, maintenance, and expansion of the national HPC infrastructure. Academic access is provided free of charge to researchers.
2. Corfo / Public Investment Programs: NLHPC participates in Corfo-funded programs including the SCAI-Lab initiative (US$7M awarded) for AI supercomputing infrastructure. Additional Corfo funding for national AI and HPC capacity building.
3. Industry and Government Service Fees: Industry and public institution users contribute economically to the infrastructure. Fee amounts are evaluated based on the ratio of computing hours requested to the contribution made. All contributions are reinvested into service quality and infrastructure improvement.
4. Partner Institution Contributions (Contrapartidas): Long-term sustainability funded through counterpart contributions from partner institutions in the SCAI-Lab consortium (65 institutions) and other institutional partnerships, as well as revenues from services to industry and startups.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

NLHPC operates Chile's national supercomputing infrastructure centered on the Guacolda-Leftraru cluster, providing high-performance computing capacity, storage, technical support, and tiered user training to academic researchers, industry users, and public institutions. The laboratory delivers HPC services across the full research lifecycle — from simulation and AI model training to operational dashboards for government agencies.

Product overview

NLHPC (National Laboratory for High Performance Computing) operates Chile's national supercomputing infrastructure centered on the Guacolda-Leftraru cluster. The laboratory provides HPC services across three main sectors: free access for academic researchers, fee-based services for industry, and dedicated support for public institutions. The service portfolio includes the core HPC infrastructure with AMD EPYC processors and GPU accelerators, user training programs at three levels (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced), monitoring tools (Dashboard and Wiki), and the SCAI-Lab initiative for AI supercomputing. Researchers access resources through an account request system with proposal evaluation. The laboratory recently expanded capabilities through the SCAI-Lab project, a collaboration with 65 institutions to establish dedicated AI supercomputing infrastructure for training foundation models and large-scale inference.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• HPC Infrastructure (Guacolda-Leftraru) National supercomputing cluster (Guacolda-Leftraru) providing high-performance computing resources to Chilean researchers, academia, industry, and public institutions. The cluster features AMD EPYC 4th Gen processors (6,912 cores total) and AMD Instinct MI210 GPU accelerators, managed via SLURM workload scheduler.
• Academic HPC Services Free access to supercomputing time and massive storage for Chilean scientists and academics nationwide, supporting the complete research lifecycle from simulation to publication. Account requests evaluated on proposal quality, researcher CV, HPC experience, and expected scientific output.
• Industry HPC Services Supercomputing support for Chilean industrial sectors to improve productivity and international competitiveness through advanced simulation, modeling, and data analysis. Industry users contribute economically based on the volume of compute hours requested relative to their contribution.
• Public Institution HPC Services Supercomputing capabilities for Chilean government institutions to modernize public services, support evidence-based policy making, and enable digital transformation of state operations. Includes customized modeling dashboards, forecast systems, and environmental monitoring platforms.
• User Training Courses Tiered training program including Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced courses covering cluster usage, parallel computing with SLURM, GPU computing, and LLM deployment, delivered via Zoom and supplemented with GitLab public repositories for asynchronous learning.
• SCAI-Lab (Supercomputing for AI Laboratory) National AI supercomputing laboratory initiative providing infrastructure for intensive AI model training and large-scale inference, involving 65 Chilean institutions with US$7 million in Corfo funding. Joint initiative between NLHPC and CENIA combining HPC infrastructure with AI expertise.

Quantifiable outcome

• Doubled research performance per watt with AMD EPYC 4th Gen vs. prior generation
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability10 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

19 partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 23 October 2025BSC and NLHPC organized the Workshop on Trends, Opportunities, and Major Advances in Systems for HPC+AI in Santiago, which included the signing of a bilateral MoU between Chile and Spain on supercomputing and AI cooperation. The MoU formalizes Spain's support for Chilean HPC projects, enables access to BSC's infrastructure and expertise, and positions Chile as a key partner in European HPC networks. BSC Director Mateo Valero (considered the father of European supercomputing) is a key collaborator.
• EU-LAC HPC Network (European Union – Latin America and Caribbean HPC Network)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 October 2025NLHPC represented Chile in signing the EU-LAC HPC Network agreement at the Global Gateway Forum 2025 in Brussels. The network connects HPC infrastructures across Europe and Latin America for shared compute resources, joint research, capacity building, and AI applications. Financed by €12M in joint EU-LAC investment (€3M initial EU funding via EuroHPC JU, €3M additional LA contribution, €1M Spain, €8M Brazil). NLHPC is a key node and technical implementation partner, working with BSC (coordinator), Jülich, CINECA, Inria, LNCC, INESTEC, Cluster-UY, and others.
• SCAI-Lab Consortium (65 Chilean Institutions)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 June 2025SCAI-Lab (Supercomputing Laboratory for AI) is NLHPC's flagship project, uniting 65 Chilean institutions — including 7 primary partners (Universidad de Chile as mandante, CENIA, CMM, PUC, REUNA, UdeC, UTA) and 58 associated entities ranging from universities and CFTs to companies and foundations — to build a national AI supercomputing infrastructure with US$7M Corfo funding. NLHPC serves as one of two pillars alongside CENIA, contributing its existing infrastructure, technical expertise, and operational capacity. The initiative represents the largest collaborative HPC+AI effort in Chilean history.
• Centro Nacional de Inteligencia Artificial (CENIA)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCENIA and NLHPC are the two foundational pillars of the SCAI-Lab project. CENIA is Chile's national AI center; NLHPC is Chile's national HPC center. Together they combine HPC infrastructure with AI expertise to deliver training of foundational AI models and large-scale inference capabilities for the Chilean research, government, and industry community.
• Red Universitaria Nacional (REUNA)coreTechnology or IntegrationREUNA is the Chilean university network providing high-speed connectivity and infrastructure for academic networking. NLHPC uses REUNA's network for delivering online training courses via Zoom and for general data transfer between partner institutions. REUNA is one of the 7 primary institutions in the SCAI-Lab consortium.
• Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOne of the 7 primary institutions in the SCAI-Lab consortium. PUC contributes to the national AI supercomputing initiative as a major research university and co-developer of the infrastructure plan.
• Universidad de Concepción (UdeC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOne of the 7 primary institutions in the SCAI-Lab consortium, serving as a key southern Chile partner in the national AI supercomputing initiative.
• Universidad de Tarapacá (UTA)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOne of the 7 primary institutions in the SCAI-Lab consortium. UTA hosts a support site for SCAI-Lab and is a key partner for NLHPC's regional presence in northern Chile. Jaime San Martín (NLHPC Scientific Director) was invited to UTA's 2025 Academic Year Inauguration.
• Centro de Modelamiento Matemático (CMM), Universidad de ChileflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerNLHPC is a division within the Infrastructure area of the CMM at FCFM, Universidad de Chile. CMM is one of the 7 primary institutions in the SCAI-Lab consortium and serves as the institutional anchor. The CMM was the founding host of NLHPC in 2011 and provides the academic and research framework within which NLHPC operates.
• CopernicusLAC ChilecoreTechnology or IntegrationCopernicusLAC Chile, housed at CMM and led by Florencio Utreras, processes and distributes European Sentinel satellite data across Latin America and the Caribbean. It collaborates with NLHPC for the compute-intensive processing of satellite data for public policy and climate monitoring, and is connected to the EU's Copernicus Earth observation program.
• Universidad de Los Lagos (ULagos)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerULagos is one of the 58 associated institutions in the SCAI-Lab consortium. It participates in the regional Innovation & Technology Summit in Puerto Varas where NLHPC's director presented on HPC+AI in Chile.
• DUOC UCminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerDUOC UC hosts the annual AI Applied Summit (5th edition) where NLHPC participates. It is one of the associated institutions in the SCAI-Lab consortium. NLHPC contributes its HPC expertise to support AI education and training initiatives at DUOC UC.
• Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOne of the 58 associated institutions in the SCAI-Lab consortium. UACh participates in the Innovation & Technology Summit and regional technology fairs organized in southern Chile.
• Universidad de Chile (UCH)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerUniversidad de Chile is the mandante (lead institution) for the SCAI-Lab project and the host institution of NLHPC through its Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (FCFM). NLHPC is part of CMM within FCFM. U. de Chile also hosts CopernicusLAC Chile, the Mirador Copernicus, and OpenBeauchef.
• Corfo (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCorfo is the Chilean economic development agency that issued the 'Desarrollo y gestión de una infraestructura nacional de Supercómputo especializada en IA' challenge, awarded US$7M to SCAI-Lab (led by U. de Chile/NLHPC) and US$7M to Tecnoera. Corfo also funded the overall US$14M government supercomputing investment announced by President Boric.
• Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología, Conocimiento e Innovación de ChileflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerChile's Ministry of Science drives national AI policy and the supercomputing investment agenda. Minister Aldo Valle participated in the Chile-Spain HPC+AI MoU signing. The Ministry's strategic vision underpins the national AI policy and the US$14M supercomputing investment.
• Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerANID is the primary funder of NLHPC's ongoing operations, providing recurring government funding for the national HPC infrastructure. ANID also funds researchers' project grants (Fondecyt, Basal, Milenio) that enable academic users to access NLHPC services. All NLHPC user contributions are reported to ANID.
• RedCLARAcoreTechnology or IntegrationRedCLARA is the Latin American academic network providing regional backbone connectivity. Together with SCALAC, it enables technical and scientific cooperation for the EU-LAC HPC Network, facilitating cross-border HPC resource sharing between Europe and Latin America.
• CSIRO ChileminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCSIRO Chile (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) partnered with SERNAPESCA on the SIMA Austral aquaculture management project, executed on NLHPC infrastructure. NLHPC provides the compute resources for particle dispersion and sediment modeling.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves10 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Laboratório Nacional de Computação Científica (LNCC): Brazil's national supercomputing laboratory, part of the Ministry of Science and Technology. LNCC is Latin America's largest national HPC center and a natural regional peer to NLHPC, both providing free academic access to national-scale infrastructure and operating as government-funded research supercomputing centers.
• CINECA: Italian national HPC consortium serving academic, public, and industry users across Italy. CINECA is a fellow EU-LAC HPC Network node and operates comparable national-scale supercomputing infrastructure with similar institutional anchoring (university consortium), making it a strong operational peer.
• Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS): Switzerland's national HPC center operating the Alps supercomputer and serving academic and industry users. CSCS provides a structurally similar model of government-funded national HPC with tiered academic, industry, and government access, making it a close operational peer.
• Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC): Spain's national supercomputing center and one of Europe's premier HPC labs. BSC is NLHPC's closest peer: both operate large-scale supercomputers, deliver user support and training, and have signed a bilateral MoU on HPC+AI cooperation, making them direct collaborators with overlapping mission and operating model.
• Jülich Supercomputing Centre: German national HPC center operating one of Europe's largest supercomputers for scientific research. Jülich is part of the EU-LAC HPC Network alongside NLHPC and shares the mission of providing tier-0/tier-1 HPC to academic users with government funding, making it a direct operational peer.
• IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center: Czech Republic's national HPC center providing supercomputing resources to academic and industry users. IT4Innovations operates at a comparable scale and with a similar tiered-access model (free academic, fee-based industry), making it a direct operational peer within the EuroHPC ecosystem.

Regional players

• Cluster-UY: Uruguay's national HPC center and a fellow EU-LAC HPC Network partner. Cluster-UY is the most direct regional peer to NLHPC in South America, providing a similar national supercomputing service to academia, industry, and government under a comparable government-funded model.

Broad incumbents

• San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC): US national HPC center at UC San Diego providing supercomputing resources, data-intensive research support, and training. SDSC shares NLHPC's university-anchored national HPC service model but operates within the larger US research ecosystem with NSF backing.
• Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC): US joint HPC center operated by Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh. PSC's joint-university operating model is structurally similar to NLHPC's anchoring within CMM/Universidad de Chile, both providing high-end compute plus user training and support.
• Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC): US-based academic HPC center at UT Austin operating large-scale supercomputers for open scientific research. TACC shares NLHPC's academic-research mission and user support model but operates at materially larger scale with broader US federal funding.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/nlhpc
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCYTsHIse10rpXHFlmGu-nEQ
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/nlhpc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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