Trips Places Foods Stories Newsletters

Take your next trip with Atlas Obscura!

Our small-group adventures are inspired by our Atlas of the world's most fascinating places, the stories behind them, and the people who bring them to life.

Visit Adventures
Trips Highlight
Macchu Picchu
Peru • 10 days, 9 nights
Peru: Machu Picchu & the Last Incan Bridges
from
Central Asia yurt night stars
Uzbekistan • 15 days, 14 nights
Central Asia Road Trip: Backroads & Bazaars
from
View all trips
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...

No search results found for
“”

Make sure words are spelled correctly.

Try searching for a travel destination.

Places near me Random place

Popular Destinations

  • Paris
  • London
  • New York
  • Berlin
  • Rome
  • Los Angeles
Trips Places Foods Stories Newsletters
Sign In Join
Places near me Random place
All the United States Illinois Champaign Blue Waters Supercomputer
Blue Waters Supercomputer is permanently closed.

This entry remains in the Atlas as a record of its history, but it is no longer accessible to visitors.

Blue Waters Supercomputer

One of the most powerful computers in the world can be visited by anyone who wants to experience more computing than they can handle.

Champaign, Illinois

Added By
visitchampaigncounty
Email
Been Here
Want to go
Added to list
CAPTION
Blue Waters Supercomputer   kosheahan on Flickr
Blue Waters Supercomputer   GBPublic_PR on Flickr
One of the cabinets opened up.   Patrick Finnegan on Flickr
Been Here
Want to go
Added to list

About

Push up your glasses and straighten your pocket protectors because the massive supercomputer known as Blue Waters at the National Petascale Computing Facility on the University of Illinois campus can be freely visited by anyone who is more interested in computing power than horsepower.  

First fired up in 2013, Blue Waters is a sustained petascale Cray supercomputer that is not just the fastest computer on a university campus, but one of the most powerful in the world. Led by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and built from the latest technologies, Blue Waters uses hundreds of thousands of computational cores across 300 tall black cabinets to achieve a terrifically silly peak performance of 13.34 petaflops, which in real-terms translates into more than 13 quadrillion calculations per second.

While one might expect such a powerful device to be held in some ultra-secure top-secret government building, it's actually available for the public to see firsthand. Anyone wanting to get an up-close look at the rows of number-crunching monoliths can call and set up a tour. Tours are free and by request, lasting around 30 minutes.

Update: The Blue Waters Supercomputer ceased operations on January 1, 2022.

 

Related Tags

Computers Science

Community Contributors

Added By

visitchampaigncounty

Edited By

Martin, mightymr1, EricGrundhauser

  • Martin
  • mightymr1
  • EricGrundhauser

Published

February 9, 2015

Updated

April 11, 2022

Edit this listing

Make an Edit
Add Photos
Sources
  • http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/04/02/blue-waters-supercomputer-debuts-at-11-6-petaflops/
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Waters
Blue Waters Supercomputer
Oak Street and St. Mary's Road
Champaign, Illinois, 61820
United States
40.094468, -88.241421
Visit Website
Get Directions

Nearby Places

Sons and Daughters of Deucalion and Pyrrha

Urbana, Illinois

miles away

The Morrow Plots

Urbana, Illinois

miles away

John Milton Gregory's Grave

Urbana, Illinois

miles away

Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of Illinois

Illinois

United States

Places 368
Stories 18

Nearby Places

Sons and Daughters of Deucalion and Pyrrha

Urbana, Illinois

miles away

The Morrow Plots

Urbana, Illinois

miles away

John Milton Gregory's Grave

Urbana, Illinois

miles away

Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of Illinois

Illinois

United States

Places 368
Stories 18

Related Places

  • The site in 2017.

    Mountain View, California

    The Real Birthplace of Silicon Valley-The Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory

    The first high-tech company in the valley that actually worked with silicon devices.

  • The Liebniz Calculator.

    Hanover, Germany

    Leibniz's Stepped Reckoner

    An extraordinary mechanical calculator designed by the mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz.

  • Coimbra, Portugal

    Cabinet of Curiosities at the University of Coimbra

    One of the oldest universities in the world exhibits thousands of specimens from its 700-year-old collection.

  • Taichung City, Taiwan

    Wufeng Mushroom Museum

    An unassuming museum offers a deep dive into everything about mushrooms, from cultivation innovations to fungi that "talk."

  • Radio telescopes.

    Cawston, British Columbia

    Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory

    One of Canada's premier radio observatories sits in a radio-quiet valley outside Penticton.

  • Vienna, Austria

    Computer und Gaming Museum Wien

    Housed in a former air raid shelter, this museum is dedicated to the history of computing and video games.

  • The sun

    Manzanares, Spain

    Paseo del Sistema Solar

    A scale model of our Solar System, where physical representations of the Sun and planets have been placed along a route in the local park.

  • Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument

    Hagerman, Idaho

    Hagerman Fossil Beds

    An ordinary rancher stumbled upon one of the world’s largest collections of Pliocene horse fossils.

Aerial image of Vietnam, displaying the picturesque rice terraces, characterized by their layered, verdant fields.
Atlas Obscura Membership

Become an Atlas Obscura Member


Join our community of curious explorers.

Become a Member

Get Our Email Newsletter

Follow Us

Facebook YouTube TikTok Instagram Pinterest RSS Feed

Get the app

Download the App
Download on the Apple App Store Get it on Google Play
  • All Places
  • Latest Places
  • Most Popular
  • Places to Eat
  • Random
  • Nearby
  • Add a Place
  • Stories
  • Food & Drink
  • Itineraries
  • Lists
  • Video
  • Podcast
  • Newsletters
  • All Trips
  • Family Trip
  • Food & Drink
  • History & Culture
  • Wildlife & Nature
  • FAQ
  • Membership
  • Feedback & Ideas
  • Community Guidelines
  • Product Blog
  • Unique Gifts
  • Work With Us
  • About
  • FAQ
  • Advertise With Us
  • Advertising Guidelines
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms of Use
Atlas Obscura

© 2025 Atlas Obscura. All Rights Reserved.