A unique infrastructure complex opened its doors
A new infrastructure complex with state-of-the-art technologies for digital transformation and high-performance computing was inaugurated today by Prime Minister Acad. Nikolai Denkov, the President of BAS Acad. Julian Revalski and the Director of the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies of BAS (IICT), Corr. Memb. Svetozar Margenov, who heads the Centre of Excellence. The new Bulgarian Hemus supercomputer is part of the complex which includes a data storage system, local application development centres and digitisation facilities.
The supercomputer will support the work of hundreds of Bulgarian scientists who will be competitive with their colleagues from abroad in the use of large-scale high-performance equipment, said the President of BAS Prof. Julian Revalski. He stressed that the fields it serves are many – mathematics and informatics, medicine, chemistry, etc. The infrastructure in Bulgaria for Bulgarian scientists has improved significantly in recent years thanks to a number of projects, the President of BAS said.
This centre, with its new equipment and the scientists working in the partner institutes, is at an extremely high European level. I know the work of colleagues who have been developing new algorithms and methods for high-performance computing for years. It is very important for them to dispose of the appropriate high-level equipment along with the scientific expertise, said Prime Minister Acad. Denkov and added that the scientists worked in cooperation with the international scientific community and both PhD students from abroad as well as guest scientists are coming to the institutes of BAS.
The Prime Minister added that he would work to ensure that the available technical facilities were supported with better salaries for young scientists. The experts here are at an extremely high level. This potential is yet to be developed and will find its application for the benefit of business and the lives of the people in Bulgaria, Acad. Denkov said.
The official ceremony was held in Scientific Complex-1 of BAS with the participation of Prof. Genka Petrova, Deputy Minister of Education and Science, Boyko Blagoev, Head of Communications at the European Commission Representation in Bulgaria, Maria Kosanova, Country Manager of HP, representatives of the academic community and business.
The complex was built by the Centre of Excellence in Informatics and ICT, funded by the “Science and Education for Smart Growth” Operational Programme 2014-2020 through the European Regional Development Fund.
The unique infrastructure includes:
Supercomputer with nearly 100,000 cores and a performance of over 3 PetaFlops (with a speed of over 3 x 1015 floating-point operations per second).
The Hemus Supercomputer enables large-scale research in areas such as artificial intelligence, climatology, bioinformatics, drug design, large-scale simulations of high-tech materials and processes, modeling of dynamic processes in industry, and high-performance analysis of big data.
Data Storage System.
The system enables the storage and processing of approximately 6.72 Petabytes of data in accordance with the FAIR principles, i.e., data that meets the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability.
Application Development Centres located at IICT and the six partners of the Centre of Excellence for Informatics and ICT.
Seven high performance server systems with graphics accelerators and specialised software connected to the supercomputer and data centre have been built for data processing and visualisation, application development and testing.
3D digitization and microstructural analysis laboratory.
The laboratory has portable laser scanning systems, a combined dynamic testing system and an industrial X-ray computed tomography system with in situ testing capability.
The Centre of Excellence in Informatics and ICT consolidates Bulgaria’s position as a regional leader in the field of informatics and ICT. Read more at http://ict.acad.bg/?page_id=162
After the opening ceremony at the “Prof. Marin Drinov” Hall of BAS, the integrated research infrastructure and the most significant achievements of the Centre were presented.
You can watch the event on the YouTube channel of BAS
