Nov. 18 — The UK’s largest distributed supercomputing network has been named as an official high performance computing (HPC) supplier in the UK Government’s latest online procurement programme.
The G-Cloud Programme was formed in 2012 to introduce cloud ICT services into government departments, local authorities and the wider public sector.
The Programme, now launching its fourth version, ensures that central UK government departments consider whether any services from those registered as suppliers on the Cloud could be considered ahead of all other organisations in any IT procurement process.
High Performance Computing (HPC) Wales is now able to offer commercial services to government and public sector organisations via the G-Cloud across the UK.
Organisations can access the state-of-the art technology remotely via a laptop or desktop computer, benefiting from its powerful processing capability wherever they are based.
Alongside supplying this technology, the supercomputing provider has considerable experience in delivering the training and support necessary to help its users fully exploit it – having already assisted over 130 enterprises, with 59 collaborative projects underway and many more in the pipeline.
Its two hubs, in Swansea and Cardiff, are powered by the latest Fujitsu Primergy equipment with Intel Sandy Bridge processors, reaching a total capacity of over 17,000 cores. The network boasts a peak processing performance of almost 320 TFlops – meaning that it is capable of running 320 trillion operations per second.
The venture has been made possible with support of £24m from the Welsh Government, including support from the European Regional Development Fund, £10m from the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and £4m matched funding from University partners. The infrastructure and some services have been developed in partnership with Fujitsu.
David Craddock, Chief Executive Officer of HPC Wales, said, “We are delighted to announce HPC Wales as a new supercomputing provider in the latest version of the G-Cloud procurement. In most cases, supercomputing has been used to support the largest companies, but the technology can in fact benefit any organisation, whatever its size. It is a versatile resource that can be adapted to suit the individual needs of an organisation – and the scope of applications is incredibly wide-ranging.We can now offer this world-class technology to central government, local authorities and public sector organisations across the UK and we look forward to working closely with these organisations in the coming months and years.”
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Source: HPC Wales