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Centre for High Performance Computing SA

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Centre for High Performance Computing SA

The Centre for High-Performance Computing (CHPC) was launched in 2007[1] and is a part of the National Integrated Cyber Infrastructure System (NICIS) in South Africa. The CHPC is supported by the South African Department of Science and Innovation, TENET and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. South Africa, in 2016, joined the Petaflop Club when the fastest computer in Africa was unveiled.[2] Dubbed "Lengau", which is a Setswana word for Cheetah;[3] this petascale system consists of Dell servers, powered by Intel processors[4]

High-performance computing

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High-performance computing (HPC) refers to the practice of aggregating computing power/resources of several computing nodes in a manner that delivers much higher-performance computer power.[5] HPC is measured in terms of floating point operations per second, or "FLOPS". HPCs are fast and can process thousand-trillion calculations (a petaflop).[6] HPC clusters have vast amounts of every type of resource that can bought. Every CHPC is different, as much of the configuration depends on the vendor and their budget. Neighbouring countries, research centres, and universities can use Lengau to advance scientific discovery, while commercial firms can also improve their efficiency and competitiveness. The CHPC is a critical player in making national data-intensive research infrastructure accessible across the research and higher education sectors.[7]

The CHPC offers high-performance computing facilities to academic and industry researchers who need to process data and perform complex calculations. During the pandemic, this CHPC contributed to worldwide efforts to identify the South African variant of SARS-CoV-2.[7]

Systems - Lengau (July 2016)

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Lengau Cluster Specifications
ComponentDetails
System NameLengau (means cheetah in Setswana)
Launch Date7 June 2016
ArchitectureDell servers, Intel Xeon processors, Bright Cluster Manager
Compute Nodes1,368 nodes, each with 24 cores @ 2.6 GHz, 64–128 GiB RAM → 32,832 cores
Large Memory Nodes5 nodes, each with 56 cores @ 2.2 GHz, 1 TiB RAM → 280 cores
GPU Nodes9 nodes, each with 36 cores @ 2.2 GHz, 32 GiB RAM, 4× NVIDIA V100 GPUs (36 GPUs total)
Total Memory~148.5 TB (compute) + 5 TB (large memory)
Storage4 PB Lustre parallel file system
InterconnectMellanox FDR InfiniBand, 56 Gbps
PerformanceRpeak: 1.307 PFLOPS, Rmax: 1.029 PFLOPS
ManagementBright Cluster Manager

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Procurement: 3PB Lustre

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In 2020, CHPC tendered for technical support and an expansion to the existing storage via RFP No 3383/07/08/2020 - The Supply of 3 PB usable storage with Lustre filesystem and Lustre professional support to the CSIR.[9]

Systems - Sebowa (May 2021)

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CHPC launched an OpenStack cloud service Sebowa in 2021 [10], led by CHPC Cloud Lead Zama Mtshali [11].

Flagship projects

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The CHPC supports several South African flagship projects.[12] Including the

  • Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an international effort to build the world's largest radio telescope[13]
  • Student Cluster Competition, a program for undergraduate students currently enrolled in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields who are trained in high-performance computing skills.[14]
  • A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulations to study galaxies and their environments [15]
  • Advanced weather modelling with the South African Weather Service (SAWS) [16]

Student Cluster Competition

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Students from the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields have the opportunity (every year) to learn more about the high-performance computing industry, and participate in the Student Cluster Competition.[17] Winners get to participate in an international Super Computing Conference.[18]

Means of production

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In the global north, the private sector has access to the means of production. It can process large-scale data sets, big data analytics & algorithmic data science methods on their HPC infrastructure. HPCs act as methodological gatekeepers, prescribing what forms of educational data science and methodological capital are permitted.[19] Unlike HPC infrastructures in the global north, where the means of production often lies with for-profit companies[19] or well-resourced private universities like Stanford. The CHPC is state-owned and prioritises computational resources and application support for any compute-intensive or machine-learning algorithms.[20] The CPHC collaborates and shares computational clusters with neighbouring countries in the SADC region,[21] to develop relevant human capital.

Awards

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In 2016, the CPHC was awarded the Readers/Editors Choice under the category "Best Collaboration Between Academia and Industry" from HPCwire.[22]

Incidents

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2026 cybersecurity breaches

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In early 2026, the CHPC suffered two cybersecurity breaches in one week to the country's flagship supercomputer, Lengau [23].

Cryptominer #1

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Users first noticed performance drops on 25 May, 2026. After being notified by users, the CHPC technical team shut down and re-imaged the nodes.

Cryptominer #2

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A second repeat attack occurred on 30 May, 2026. This second incident forced the CHPC to perform further checks and another offline shutdown. This time, users were notified of a suspected intrusion. The breach came from compromised root SSH credentials.[24]


References

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  1. ↑ "CHPC propels supercomputing in South Africa". 18 February 2015.
  2. ↑ "South Africa Joins Petaflop Club | TOP500".
  3. ↑ "South African CHPC Unveils Lengau Supercomputer". 22 February 2016.
  4. ↑ "chpc:lengau [wiki.chpc.ac.za]". wiki.chpc.ac.za.
  5. ↑ Shapopi, Jimmy; Limbo, Anton; Backes, Michael (2023). "Namibia's first high performance computer". South African Computer Journal. 35. doi:10.18489/sacj.v35i1.1189.
  6. ↑ "Department of Science and Innovation".
  7. 1 2 "How South Africa CHPC Responded to Unprecedented Computing Needs to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic". Informatics from Technology Networks.
  8. ↑ "Lengau". CHPC Wiki. Centre for High Performance Computing. Retrieved 12 September 2026.
  9. ↑ "RFP No 3383/07/08/2020 - The Supply of 3 PB usable storage with Lustre filesystem and Lustre professional support to the CSIR" (PDF).
  10. ↑ "CentOS based OpenStack Cloud Computing platform boosts CHPC's virtual environment service offering". May 5, 2021.
  11. ↑ Moyake, Nox (April 3, 2024). "Team CSIR honoured at sixth parliament legacy report on science and innovation meeting".
  12. ↑ https://www.chpc.ac.za/research-and-collaboration/flagship-projects/
  13. ↑ "Square Kilometre Array (SKA) | South African Government".
  14. ↑ "CHPC Student Cluster Competition".
  15. ↑ "Cunnama solves galactic puzzles using supercomputer simulations". 18 April 2014.
  16. ↑ "CSIR and SA Weather Services partner". 9 May 1994.
  17. ↑ "2025 Student Cluster Competition: Team Selection (6-13 July 2025): Overview · CHPC Events (Indico)".
  18. ↑ "About – CHPC Student Cluster Competition".
  19. 1 2 Williamson, Ben (May 2017). "Who owns educational theory? Big data, algorithms and the expert power of education data science" (PDF). E-Learning and Digital Media. 14 (3): 105–122. doi:10.1177/2042753017731238. ISSN 2042-7530.
  20. ↑ "NICIS – National Integrated Cyber Infrastructure System".
  21. ↑ "Advancing High-Performance Computing in South Africa: The CHPC – NICIS".
  22. ↑ "CHPC receives honours in 2016 Supercomputing conference | CSIR".
  23. ↑ "CHPC hacked twice in less than a week".
  24. ↑ "CHPC hacked twice in less than a week".

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