Northern Ireland’s first high performance computing service was revealed today, bringing significant competitive advantage to local businesses and researchers that can benefit from the application of high performance computing. Representatives from Fujitsu and the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister celebrated the unveiling of the £1.1 million High Performance Computing service at a launch event earlier today in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter.

Fujitsu has invested £1.1 million in the service to support the development of the local knowledge economy with an emphasis on increasing HPC adoption among small and medium sized enterprises. There are plans to develop a catalogue of applications across a large number of sectors, including life sciences, agriculture, advanced materials design, manufacturing, financial, energy, IT, and others.

Project backers cite the well-known advantages of high-performance computing, such as faster time to market, accelerated ROI, increased efficiency and lower costs. New users of HPC will report that jobs which used to take months or weeks can be completed in days or hours, for instance. But the barriers to HPC adoption are also substantial, thus the need for HPC capabilities to be provided in a cost effective, secure and efficient manner.

“[The project] essentially brings a supercomputing service to Northern Ireland for the first time, something which has the potential to add significant competitive advantage to a wide range of local businesses and researchers who will now be able to access world-class, secure and easy to use high performance computing technology which is critical to solving advanced computational problems, but at high speed and at a fraction of the cost,” said a Fujitsu spokesperson.

“With application across a large number of innovative and creative sectors, the HPC Service has the potential to fast-track product innovation, knowledge capital, commercially focused research and with it the associated job creation.”

Speaking at the launch, the First Minister Peter Robinson said: “I welcome that Fujitsu has chosen Northern Ireland to invest over £1 million to deliver this innovative new service to enable our indigenous businesses to benefit from leading-edge computing technology.”

Like much of the world, Northern Ireland is tasked with rebuilding its economy in the shadow of the worst global recession since World War II. The success of this endeavor hinges on the revitalization of small and medium sized enterprises, which are the lifeblood of economies around the world and also employ the largest number of people. “Any initiative that can add a significant competitive advantage to local business is very much welcomed,” said Minister Robinson.

Fujitsu already has an established presence in Northern Ireland, where it invests some £20 million in salaries into the local economy each year. The company employs more than 1,000 people at sites in Belfast, Antrim and Timber Quay in Derry.

The initiative follows a visit by First Minister Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness to Fujitsu’s Tokyo headquarters last December where they learned about the company’s vision for a Human Centric Intelligent Society.

Speaking about the Fujitsu High Performance Computing service, Fujitsu executive Newland McKelvey provided additional details: “Fujitsu’s global vision is to deliver A Human Centric Intelligent Society and to harness the power of technology to achieve a better and more self-sustaining society. As part of that agenda we have long been at the leading edge of High Performance Computing development and application. We know that HPC technology helps promote the development of a deeper understanding of science and engineering and that its ability to process and interpret huge volumes of data will encourage the discovery of new solutions to many of the emerging 21st Century challenges.”

McKelvey also provided clues as to the direction of the project: “Immediately we see relevant application to the local creative industry sector and to those involved in, advanced engineering and manufacturing, data analysis, medical testing and computational fluid dynamics. Building on the success of the pilot studies, we will now be looking to identify organisations who wish to access the service and help us build mutually beneficial collaborations which maximises the economic opportunities presented by this enabling service.”