Want a Government Supercomputer? The US is selling one!

The US is selling its Cheyenne supercomputer, a 145,152 core computational monster!

Want to buy an Ex-Government Supercomputer? Now’s your chance! The U.S. General Services Administration has decided to put the Cheyenne supercomputer up for auction. This computational monster was deployed in 2016, and it was once the 20th most powerful computer system in the world.

Bidding for this monster PC started at $2,500, and currently the top bid for the system is $100,170. The system features 8,064 Intel Xeon E5-2697v4 18-core CPUs, giving the system 145,152 CPU cores in total. Additionally, this computer features over 306TB of DDR4 memory, and the entire system is liquid cooled.

Originally, Cheyenne was due to be replace five years after it was commissioned, but the COVID pandemic disrupted supply chains and extended the systems life cycle by two years. Now, the system is in disrepair. Simply put maintenance issues have piled up. As it stands, Cheyenne is not fully operational, which is why the system is being sold for parts.

Faulty quick-disconnects within this system’s liquid cooling system, has caused around 1% of this system’s compute nodes to fail. While the system is repairable, repair efforts would cause a lot of system downtime. On top of that, repairs would also incur huge costs. Buyers of this system will likely be disassembling it for scrap and selling off valuable components. In truth, we don’t expect this system’s buyer to make it fully operational again. After all, it doesn’t even come with its fiber optic and CAT5/6 cabling.

Cheyenne’s auction ends on April 5th at 6.11 PM CT. If you are interested in bidding on a supercomputer, now’s your chance! Cancelling your bid isn’t an option here, so remember that before throwing your hat into the ring.

You can join the discussion on the US selling their Cheyenne supercomputer on the OC3D Forums.