A non-profit state enterprise, CSC develops, integrates, and provides information technology services and ensures that Finland remains at the forefront of development. EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) will pool European resources to develop top-of-the-range exascale supercomputers for processing big data, to purchase three pre-exascale supercomputers for Europe by the year 2021.
LUMI will be hosted in CSC’s datacenter
For reaching this goal, EuroHPC JU signed a hosting agreement for placing one of the pre-exascale supercomputers called LUMI to CSC’s datacenter in Kajaani, Finland, in collaboration with the LUMI (Large Unified Modern Infrastructure) consortium. Finland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland are the countries involved in the LUMI.
For five years, between 2021–2026, LUMI is positioned as one of the world’s best-known scientific computing instruments. Supercomputers with artificial intelligence are very effective against cyberattacks and developing encryption technologies, as well as studying climate change and for weather prediction. Kimmo Koski, CSC’s Managing Director, says:
“The LUMI consortium is a unique European collaboration in which nine countries are investing in a common system. The world-class expertise of the LUMI consortium added to CSC’s comprehensive service concept and environmentally sustainable datacenter in Kajaani, Finland are the cornerstones of the consortium. We are especially proud of the confidence these countries have shown for CSC by joining the forces with us and we will do everything to be worthy of this trust.”
This hosting assignment is a start for Europe to be positioned as one of the world leaders in supercomputing, enabling European researchers to access world-class computing resources.