PSC40: Powering Discovery
The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is celebrating our 40th anniversary in 2026, marking four decades of contributing to national cyberinfrastructure, educating the next generation of HPC experts, and enabling groundbreaking research.
PSC was founded in 1986 as a joint effort between Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Westinghouse Corporation, in response to an NSF solicitation for supercomputing centers. Since then, PSC has grown to be a major player in the national cyberinfrastructure ecosystem, building machines like our current flagship Bridges-2, leading biomedical research projects, and training thousands of students and professionals. We’re so proud of our team and the center’s accomplishments over the past 40 years, and we hope you will join us in celebrating this milestone throughout 2026.
Save the Date!
PSC 40th Anniversary Research Symposium
September 24, 2026
2:00-6:00 PM EST
40 Years of Computing
The first PSC supercomputer, the Cray X-MP/48, was a gamechanger for research—although your smartphone today would out-compute it! Browse through the futuristic designs of the 1980s, to the cutting-edge platforms giving us groundbreaking advancements in science today.
Use left and right arrow keys to scroll the timeline or swipe left/right on touch screens. Select a machine to view details.
40 Years of Innovation
The PSC newsroom brings you the very latest news in high-performance computing and scientific research. And in 2026, we’ll also be sharing special interviews and retrospectives on the history of computing at PSC, and the people who made it a reality.
First Supercomputed Can Design Shaved Weight, Saved Money
1987 ALCOA Work with PSC Supercomputer Helped Set Stage for Industrial Supercomputing Design Revolution
Ralph Roskies: From Science to Supercomputing
Ralph Roskies talks about his early days at PSC, founding the center with Mike Levine, and their early collaboration.
2025 Year in Review
With the cold and snowy weather of December, we know that the winter holidays are nearly upon us, and the new year will soon follow. Now’s the perfect time to reflect on all the PSC stories and events of 2025.
40 Years of History
Decades of cyberinfrastructure history are now publicly available in a fully-digitized library. Browse “Projects in Scientific Computing,” published by PSC from 1986 to 2019.
About PSC
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is a joint computational research center with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Established in 1986, PSC is supported by several federal agencies, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and private industry and is a partner in the National Science Foundation cyberinfrastructure program.
PSC provides university, government, and industrial researchers with access to several of the most powerful systems for high performance computing, communications, and data storage available to scientists and engineers nationwide for unclassified research. PSC advances the state of the art in high performance computing, communications, and data analytics and offers a flexible environment for solving the largest and most challenging problems in computational science.
Thank You
PSC would not have gotten to this point without the support of our home universities, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as every staff member, advisor, intern, and partner who we’ve worked with over the years. We are grateful to the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health for supporting us throughout the years and serving as valuable partners. Furthermore, we would like to extend our thanks to the State of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development for their continued support and partnership with PSC.
