New national supercomputer to be operated by University of Galway
University of Galway is to host Ireland’s new supercomputer, following the signing of a collaboration agreement by the Government and the European Commission.
The national high performance computing system (CASPIr) will be operated by the University’s Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC), providing the research and innovation community across Ireland and Europe with significantly enhanced capacity to address challenges and opportunities in science and society such as climate, environment, health, AI and Big Data.
CASPIr will be co-funded by the Dept for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation & Science, and European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) as part of a five-year collaboration agreement.
CASPIr follows on from the supercomputer Kay (pictured), which was commissioned in 2018.
It is one of 31 supercomputers in Europe which are funded under the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. It is planned to be in service in 2027. CASPIr takes its name from Computational Analysis and Simulation Platform for Ireland.
ICHEC is hosted at University of Galway and funded by the Department of Further and Higher, Education, Research, Innovation and Science. It is Ireland’s national centre for high-performance computing, providing e-infrastructure, services and expertise to the academic research community, industry and the public sector. Its high-performance computing services are made available to researchers based on a peer review process by an independent panel of scientists.
Four key research themes have been identified as areas of focus for CASPir following go-live, including environment and climate; genomics; nano-materials; mobility.
Director of ICHEC JC Desplat said: “The signature of this agreement with EuroHPC represents an important milestone for Ireland. It paves the way to the procurement of CASPIr, one of a new generation of supercomputers designed to execute sophisticated computer models known as ‘digital twins’, with broad domains of applications ranging from health and life sciences, to the search for new materials, mitigating the impact of climate change and improving mobility within our cities.”
Dr Sarah Guerin, Chair of the ICHEC Users Council and Associate Professor in Sustainable Energy Harvesting at University of Limerick, said: “This infrastructure will allow computational researchers to realise the full potential of our homegrown expertise and take on real global challenges. I am excited for people around Ireland to benefit from, among many others, the technological, economical and meteorological outputs that this will facilitate in universities and industry.”
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