The Discoverer supercomputer in Bulgaria is due for an upgrade.
The European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) this month launched a new procurement call for the acquisition, delivery, installation, and maintenance of a hardware and software upgrade for the Discoverer supercomputer.
The call would see Discoverer upgraded with a new GPU partition, an additional UPS system, and a storage capacity increase. The value of the call is around €3.04 million ($3.2m).
Delivered by Atos (now Eviden) in October 2021, the BullSequana XH2000-based Discoverer is capable of 4.5 petaflops/5.94 peak and has two petabytes of storage. It currently consists of 1,128 compute nodes, each relying on two AMD’s Epyc Rome CPUs. It is housed at the Sofia Tech Park in Sofia, Bulgaria.
“With the upgrade of its supercomputers, the EuroHPC JU is seizing the opportunity to ensure a cost-effective implementation of its mission to develop, deploy, extend, and maintain in Europe a world-leading supercomputing ecosystem. The upgrade will lead to an increase of the supercomputer’s operational performance, and provide new functionalities to address the evolution of user needs,” the EuroHPC JU said in the call.
Access to the computing resources of the upgraded system will still be jointly managed by the Republic of Bulgaria and the EuroHPC JU.
Israel joins EuroHPC and procurement starts for Polish quantum computer
The EuroHPC JU is also undergoing procurement for a quantum computer in Poland. EuroQCS-Poland will be a digital, gate-based quantum computer offering 20-plus physical qubits hosted at the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC).
The total cost of ownership of the system is €15.5 million ($16.3m). The EuroHPC JU will fund half of the total cost of the acquisition, integration, and operating cost of the new machine, and the remaining half will be funded by the Ministry of Digital Affairs of Poland
Last year, the EuroHPC JU said six sites across Europe would host and operate EuroHPC quantum computers, integrating them into existing supercomputers in Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain.
Early October also saw Israel join the EuroHPC JU. It is the 34th country to join.
Anders Dam Jensen, executive director of the EuroHPC JU, said: "We warmly welcome Israel as the newest member of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. Israel's expertise in technology and innovation will contribute to maintaining Europe as a global leader in HPC and Quantum Computing.”
Shlomi Kofman, VP international division and MD of the Israel Innovation Authority (ISERD), added: “Israel is thrilled to join the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking and be an active and contributing member.”
