Cedar Supercomputing Centre

Canada's trusted innovation partner

Universities, industry leaders and all levels of governments across Canada rely on Cedar’s compute power to accelerate discovery and innovation. Canadian companies—particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)—and researchers are tackling problems in sectors ranging from personalized medicine for better patient care, to green technologies to help fight climate change.

With Cedar, Canadian innovators are creating real-world, commercialized solutions across these critical sectors:

Health care delivery
Clean energy
Automotive
Quantum computing
Artificial intelligence

Powering Canada's digital sovereignty

Cedar is a key part of SFU’s commitment to strengthen Canada’s digital sovereignty, enhance economic resilience, support workforce development, and ensure the country remains a global leader in artificial intelligence, innovation and commercialization.

Under the stewardship of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, Cedar was deployed as part of one of the biggest advanced research computing renewals in Canada’s history. Cedar currently supports more than 17,000 Canadian researchers—the highest number served among the five national supercomputers that make up Canada’s Digital Research Infrastructure.

Clean-energy high-performance computing

Cedar's cooling pipes, which is part of its state-of-the-art energy efficient cooling system.

Cedar is Canada’s most sustainable data centre and boasts an industry-leading power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.07, far surpassing the industry average of 1.50 (1.0 is the most efficient possible).

The damp winters and dry summers of the West Coast help naturally reduce cooling costs. Combined with 98 per cent renewable hydroelectric energy and highly efficient rear door heat exchangers that dissipate heat at the source, Cedar sets an industry standard for sustainable supercomputing.

Access to Cedar for Canadian researchers

Researchers have access to a robust suite of services provided by a world-class advanced research computing team at the university. SFU’s Research Computing Group is a dedicated and experienced team that provides consultation, expertise and insight to guide researchers on their use of Cedar.

Cedar also empowers researchers in humanities, social sciences, Indigenous studies, and beyond to explore complex questions, analyze large datasets, and support community-driven research—advancing understanding in areas like cultural preservation, public policy and ethical use of emerging technologies.

Specifications

See the list of Cedar Supercomputer Centre's specifications.

Contact

James Peltier
Director, Research Computing, HPC
james_peltier@sfu.ca