The Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) at NUI Galway has been selected by the European Union as the home for a new supercomputer.
Ireland has been selected as one of five countries, along with Germany, Hungary, Greece and Poland, chosen to host the next generation of European high performance computing, and the process will be completed subject to national co-funding arrangements.
"The key benefit of a super-computing technology of this excellence is its capacity to model complexity and to radically expand our research opportunities", said NUI Galway Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh
“Our core values at NUI Galway include openness and respect and computing infrastructure of this capacity will be a significant asset in that regard as it futureproofs our approach to research, respecting the evidence and making a major contribution to openly supporting the scientific research community in Ireland.
"It also fits with so many aspects of our research strategy, using data to support research and policy-making in the environment, marine, healthcare, and in supporting a good society.”
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Commenting on the successful bid, Professor J-C Desplat, of ICHEC, said a new supercomputer would be "around 25 times more powerful than the current national supercomputer Kay and "provide a national competence development platform for both numerical modelling and for the next generation of data-centric techniques and platforms and, as such, accelerate the adoption of powerful new hybrid techniques embedding machine learning within mainstream computational science models and Grand Challenges.”
Professor Jim Livesey, vice president for research and innovation at NUI Galway, added: “The key feature of a machine of this nature is its capacity to model complexity.
"As weather patterns change, as the future of distributed energy networks change, as we attempt to predict food supply needs of the future, we need a totally new kind of computing capacity to support our endeavours in these areas for the public good.”
EuroHPC supercomputers will be made available to the scientific community, industry and the public sector for applications such as designing medicines and new materials to fighting climate change.
NUI Galway, which will soon changes its name to the University of Galway, was recently ranked the joint-270th best university in the world in the QS World University Rankings.
Photo: NUI Galway.
