What makes a Supercomputer Centre a Supercomputer Centre?

When is a Supercomputer Center not a Supercomputer Center?

The world of HPC has always been a place of rapid change in technology with slower change in business models and skill profiles, but what actually makes a supercomputer center a supercomputer center?

Tin (or Silcon maybe)

Is it having a big HPC system? How big counts? Does it matter what type of "big" system you have?

Does it matter if there is not one big supercomputer but instead a handful of medium sized ones of different types?

Does it count if the supercomputers are across the street, or in a self-owned/operated datacentre the other side of town? What if the supercomputers are located hundreds of miles away from the HPC (eg to get cheap power & cooling)?

Who and How

Or is it having a team of HPC experts able to help users? How many experts? What level of expertise counts? How many have to be RSE (Research Software Engineer) types?

Is it having the vision and processes to recognise they are primarily a service provider to their users ("customers") rather than thinking of themselves mainly as a buyer of HPC kit?

What if you mainly have AI workloads rather than "traditional" HPC? What if you only run many small simulation jobs and no simulations that span thousands of cores? What if users only ever submit jobs via web portals and never log in to the supercomputers directly?

Is it essential to have a .edu, .gov, .ac.uk etc. address? Or can .com be a supercomputer center too?

This but not that?

If you have no supercomputers of your own, but have 50 top class HPC experts who work with users on other supercomputers and also research future technologies - is that a supercomputer center?

If you have a very large HPC system but only the bare miuminm of HPC staff and no technology R&D efforts - is that a supercopmputer center?

Which of the last two adds more value to your users?

Declare or Earn?

Is it merely a matter of declaration - "we are a supercomputer center"? Or it is a matter of other supercomputer centers accepting you as a peer? But then who counts as other supercomputer centers to accept you? What if some do and some don't?

Is there a difference between a supercomputer center and a supercomputing center?

What do you think? And does your answer depend on whether you are a user, or work at a "traditional" supercomputer center, or a new type of supercomputing center, or a HPC vendor, or from outside the HPC field?