Vega, First New EuroHPC Supercomputer to Be Delivered in the EU, Will Be Operational April 2021

March 23, 2021 — On 10 March 2021, the EuroHPC world-class supercomputer Vega was officially delivered. The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) and the Institute of Information Science in Maribor Slovenia (IZUM) signed the acceptance document, after the vendor Atos completed the construction of the system. A high-level digital event will be held on 20 April, to officially launch Vega, which will be the first new EU supercomputer procured jointly with EU funds.

Mr. Anders Dam Jensen, the EuroHPC JU Executive Director said: “I am delighted that we have reached this milestone with our Slovenian partners. The first EuroHPC petascale computer is now build, we have signed the acceptance protocol and paid the last invoice. The machine has already successfully completed its benchmarks. Other tests will be performed in the coming days to fine tune the system and connections with users. Everything is on schedule to have the first fully operational EuroHPC system in April.”

Dr. Aleš Bošnjak, Director of IZUM, added: “With the start-up of Vega, the largest supercomputer in Slovenia, we have, as a part of the HPC RIVR operation and with a substantial own investment, acquired Slovenia’s largest research infrastructure. The Vega supercomputer will enable soon both Slovenian and other European researchers to cooperate in large international research projects and additionally accelerate the use of supercomputing capacities in Slovenia.”

Vega is an Atos BullSequana XH2000 infrastructure which will execute more than 6,9 Petaflops or 6,9 million billion calculations per second. It is co-funded by the EuroHPC JU through EU funds and IZUM, with a joint investment of EUR 17.2 million.

Named after a Slovenian mathematician Jurij Vega, the supercomputer will foster open science and enhance research and innovation in Europe. From April, it will provide leading edge HPC infrastructures and services to a wide range of users. Vega will support the development of leading scientific, public sector and industrial applications in many domains, specifically including machine learning, artificial intelligence, and high-performance data analytics.Background

The procurement contract of Vega was signed on 1 October 2020 by the EuroHPC JU, the Slovenian IZUM, the hosting entity, and Atos, the selected vendor.

The company Atos was selected following a call for tender launched in April 2020.

On 20 April 2021, an event will take place online to official inaugurate Vega. More information to follow on this event will appear on EuroHPC JU and IZUM websites very soon.

The computing power of Vega will soon be complemented by four additional EuroHPC petascale supercomputers to be built in the following supercomputing centres: