Supercomputer at UW gets a ‘cool’ new upgrade
Posted Nov 1, 2025 06:44:27 AM.
Last Updated Nov 1, 2025 02:00:48 PM.
There’s a new life, and a new name, for the supercomputer at the University of Waterloo.
What was the Graham Supercomputer is now called Nibi, and is considered one of the most powerful computers anywhere, ranking in the Top 500 of research computers in the world.
A statement from the university says Nibi is as powerful as 35,000 desktop computers, and offers 25 petabytes — or 25 million gigabytes — of storage.
It provides increased performance and reliability, and can handle everything from batch computing and visualization to large-scale AI models.
Nibi is expected to handle the work of more than 4,000 researchers each year.
Nibi has a meaning, literally “water” in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe), chosen, in consultation with local Indigenous communities, to represent the supercomputer’s new cooling system.
It uses water instead of air for cooling, and the heat absorbed into the water is then used to warm the Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre.
UW’s supercomputer first went online in 2017, under the name Graham.
