SURFsara in the Netherlands Upgrades Bull Supercomputer to 1.8 Petaflops

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Picture (Device Independent Bitmap) 1Today SURFsara in the Netherlands announced it will expand the capacity of their Cartesius national supercomputer in the second half of 2016. With an upgrade to 1.8 Petaflops, the Bull sequana system will enable researchers to work on more complex models for climate research, water management, improving medical treatment, research into clean energy, noise reduction and product and process optimization.

When it acquired the system, SURFsara opted for an on-demand strategy,” said Prof. dr. ir. Anwar Osseyran, CEO of SURFsara. “This means that we can offer cost-effective computing power tailored to the needs of Dutch researchers, and they always have the very latest technology at their fingertips.”

Cartesius will incorporate the latest Intel processors (Broadwell) and InfiniBand Enhanced Data Rate (EDR).

SURFsara has a lot of confidence in our technology and in its cooperation with Atos,” said Roel Kusters, Head of Big Data & Security in Benelux & The Nordics at Atos. “This project is part of our Exascale programme for 2020, under which we are developing a new generation of supercomputers. In terms of computing power, these supercomputers should break through the Exaflop Barrier with more than a trillion operations per second and, at the same time, consume a lot less electricity.”

SURFsara supports Dutch Research Sara with ICT innovations and works closely with the academic community and industry. SURFSara offers an integrated ICT infrastructure and delivers expertise and services in the field of high performance computing, large-scale data storage, visualisation, network technology, cloud technology and e-science support. SURFsara, founded in 1971 as SARA, is a part of SURF, the ICT cooperation organisation for education and research in the Netherlands.

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