Forschungszentrum Juelich (FZJ) has a press release (in German) announcing that the Gauss Center for Supercomputing (GCS) (a co-orperation between the German national HPC centers – FZJ, HLRS at Stuttgart, LRZ at Garching) will install a Petaflops supercomputer later this year. The super will be an IBM BlueGene/P system, similar to the existing 222TF “JUGENE” BG/P at FZJ. The 72 racks of the new (as yet un-named) system will consume only 2.2MW.
This latest announcement, on top of recent supercomputer announcements (e.g. 200TF Bull supercomputer) from FZJ, shows the understanding of the value of leadership scale supercomputing in the German funding bodies, and helps to confirm Germany, GCS, and FZJ as one of the leaders of the European HPC scene.
FZJ is also central to the European PRACE project, which is working to deploy a Europe-wide Petascale supercomputing service in the next year or two.