MareNostrum 5, the latest world-class European supercomputer, was inaugurated today in Barcelona. Currently ranked as one of the ten most powerful supercomputers in the world, it is hosted at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and will be accessible to a wide range of European scientific and industrial users from March 2024.
MareNostrum 5 has a maximum performance of 314 petaflops, that is, 314,000 billion calculations per second. It is also the greenest supercomputer in Europe. It will be highly energy efficient and will run entirely on sustainable energy. The heat it generates will serve to heat the building where it is located.
MareNostrum 5 is one of the most innovative supercomputing systems in the world and is specifically designed to solve complex scientific problems. It will help boost Europe’s work in various areas. For example, it will help European medical research by supporting the development of drugs and vaccines and carrying out simulations of virus spread. It can also be used for traditional supercomputing applications, in areas such as climate research, engineering, materials science and Earth sciences.
The supercomputer will enhance other European initiatives, such as Destination Earth, which aims to develop a highly accurate digital model of the entire planet, and the European virtual twin initiative of the human being, launched today by the Commission. This initiative will help scientists better understand the human body and improve healthcare and personalized medicine.
MareNostrum 5 is also designed for use by artificial intelligence developers. It will use the most advanced accelerator microprocessors available today, helping it meet the needs of emerging AI platforms and improving the performance of large European AI language models. As President von der Leyen announced in her State of the Union address, MareNostrum 5 will be available to European AI startups to train their models. This should help accelerate the development of ethical AI-based technologies and algorithms in Europe, making it easier for the EU to lead global efforts on responsible, ethical and safe AI.
The new system represents a total investment of more than 151 million euros to cover its acquisition and maintenance, with 50% coming from the EU and 50% contributed by a consortium led by Spain in which Portugal and Turkey also participate.
The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC Joint Undertaking) is a legal and financing entity created in 2018 to allow the EU and the countries participating in the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking to coordinate their efforts and pool their resources in order to achieve Europe is a world leader in supercomputing. In July 2021, the Council adopted the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking Regulation, with an additional investment of €7 billion for the period 2021-2027.
The capabilities of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking will soon be extended to exascale and higher performance thanks to the JUPITER exascale supercomputers and that of the JULES VERNE consortium.
The computing power of MareNostrum 5 will complement the existing supercomputers of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking:
- High performance computing
MareNostrum 5 represents a significant step forward in Europe’s supercomputing capacity, adding to the already strong line-up of supercomputers in the EU. It will boost efforts in many areas, with a particular emphasis on healthcare applications, AND at the same time, it will be Europe’s greenest supercomputer to date, running entirely on renewable energy. It is a clear example of how digital and ecological transitions can be combined.
