PetaSC: a new EuroHPC world-class supercomputer in Bulgaria

Sofia Tech Park

The procurement contract of a new EuroHPC petascale supercomputer has been signed by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), the hosting entity, the consortium “Petascale Supercomputer Bulgaria” whose leading partner is Sofia Tech Park, and the company Atos, the selected vendor.

This new HPC system, located in Sofia Tech Park, in Bulgaria, will be a petascale supercomputer, capable of executing more than 4,44 Petaflops or 4,44 million billion calculations per second. 

Anders Dam Jensen, the Executive Director of the EuroHPC JU stated:

"In just a few months, a new EuroHPC supercomputer will increase the computing power available in Bulgaria and in Europe as a whole. Over the last months, supercomputers have been critical in developing vaccines against COVID-19. This new top-of-the-range system is the sixth EuroHPC supercomputer to be contracted and will further support European researchers, industry and public users to develop optimised solutions to current complex challenges in sectors like health, energy, agriculture or material design."

Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, added:

“I am very happy to see the efforts begun last year come to fruition, with the acquisition of this new supercomputing system in my native Bulgaria. This new supercomputer will aid European research in driving innovation and fostering better science by providing access to leading edge HPC infrastructures and services – regardless where they are in Europe.”

Peter Statev, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Sofia Tech Park JSC and the legal representative of PetaSC-Bulgaria, explained:

“The challenge that the “Petascale supercomputer – Bulgaria” Consortium faces is to strengthen and develop the partnership between the industry, the leading universities and the Bulgarian Academy of Science. An additional task is the training of specialists skilled in the technology application into the problems worked on by the industry in the next 5 to 10 years. Last but not least, is the effective work and the knowledge and technology transfer with the others centers, part of the European HPC network.”

The new supercomputer is co-funded by the Republic of Bulgaria and the EuroHPC JU with a joint investment of EUR 11,5 million. The access to the computing resources of the new machine will be jointly managed by the two entities in proportion to their investments. This new supercomputing system is expected to be operational in May 2021.

Its objective is to foster better science and enhance innovation in Europe by providing access to leading edge HPC infrastructures and services to a wide range of users from the research and scientific community as well as the industry and the public sector. This new supercomputer will support the development of leading scientific, public sector and industrial applications in many domains, including bioinformatics, pharmacy, molecular dynamics and mechanics, quantum chemistry and biochemistry, artificial intelligence, personalized medicine, bio-engineering, weather forecasting and fight against climate change.