Today, the European Commission, EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, Italian Ministry of Universities and Research, and CINECA consortium inaugurated LEONARDO- Europe’s latest supercomputer located at Bologna Technopole in Italy.
The new supercomputer is a major asset for Europe. It will help researchers and businesses develop new products and services, boost innovation and competitiveness, and tackle major societal challenges such as climate change, aging populations, and digital transformation.
The Leonardo project has been a public-private partnership between the European Commission, EuroHPC JU, CINECA and the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research. The project, as a whole, will amount to approximately €200 million, with the European Commission providing €85 million of that. The project’s main purpose is to make high-performance computing (HPC) services available to researchers and businesses in Europe. This will allow them to carry out complex tasks that would otherwise be too expensive or time-consuming.
Journey Started in 2017 with 1 BILLION EURO
The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU) was established in December 2017 with a budget of €1 billion to effect the deployment of top-of-the-line supercomputers throughout Europe. With this, they will be able to fill the competitive gap between them and countries like China and Japan, which have already been pouring money into this venture.
A BIg European Partnership
The EuroHPC JU is a partnership between the European Commission and 19 European countries, which will work together to ensure that Europe remains at the forefront of high-performance computing. The JU will fund the development of new supercomputers and the transfer of knowledge and technology from universities and research centers to businesses.
This is a very important step towards ensuring that Europe remains competitive in the global economy. Supercomputers are essential for weather forecasting, drug development, and automobile design. Investing in this area ensures that our businesses have access to the latest technology and can on a global scale.
Fourth Powerful Supercomputer
LEONARDO is a top-of-the-line supercomputer designed and built in Europe. When complete, it will be able to oil 250 petaflops (250 million billion calculations per second). As of now, LEONARDO stands as the fourth most powerful supercomputer worldwide.
The joint investment of €120 million is funded half by the Commission and half by Rome’s Ministry of Universities and Research as well as CINECA, a consortium consisting of five other EuroHPC countries:
- Greece
- Slovenia
- Hungary
- Austria
- Slovakia
Will Help Researchers in High-Performance Computing
The European pre-exascale supercomputer, LEONARDO, is now operational. This top-of-the-line technology relies on state-of-the-art components for high-performance computing and artificial intelligence to carry out complex tasks. Some examples of this will enable researchers to discover cancer treatments and drugs, understand how the brain functions, find cleaner energy sources, improve climate modeling accuracy, predict natural disasters, and more.
The LEONARDO supercomputer system is equipped with tools to focus on environmental sustainability. It can dynamically adjust its power consumption for an intelligent balance between energy saving and performance. To top it all off, this machine uses a water-cooling system– making it even more energy efficient than ever before.
CINECA’s computing abilities will receive a significant upgrade with the addition of LEONARDO, as CINECA has also been selected to house one of the first European-made quantum computers.
What’s Next?
The European world-class high-performance computing and data infrastructure is continuing to be deployed with the installation of the Deucalion petascale supercomputer in Portugal and the third MareNostrum 5 pre-exascale supercomputer in Spain.
As a follow-up, the EuroHPC JU announced new sites for supercomputers in June 2022. One of these supercomputers will be Europe’s first exascale one: JUPITER. It will be located at Germany’s Jülich Supercomputing Centre.
Furthermore, plans for another European exascale computer in 2023 are underway, as well as the distribution of more supercomputers and quantum computers starting next year.
This joint investment is an excellent example of how Europe is leading the way in high-performance computing and will continue to play an essential role in the global economy. This is just the beginning, and with Europe’s continued focus and commitment to supercomputing, advances in this area will continue to be made.
