New Swiss supercomputer inaugurated
Published: Saturday, Sep 14th 2024, 11:40
Updated At: Saturday, Sep 14th 2024, 13:40
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Switzerland has a new supercomputer. The computer, named "Alps", was officially inaugurated on Saturday at the National Supercomputing Center in Lugano by Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin. It is one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.
"'Alps' is an expression of our vision of a future characterized by knowledge and progress," said Parmelin in a speech at the opening.
It would take a standard laptop a full 40,000 years to perform the calculations that "Alps" does in one day, as Michele De Lorenzi, Deputy Director and Head of Communications at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS), explained to the Keystone-SDA news agency.
The new supercomputer was developed to meet the extreme data and computing requirements of science, as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) wrote in a press release on Saturday. It will be used in particular in climatology, where huge amounts of data are generated, and in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). According to ETH Zurich, the supercomputer makes it possible to train complex AI models for important applications, for example in medicine and climate research.
Alps" is also used for the weather forecasts of the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology (MeteoSwiss). Since June, these forecasts have been based on a new weather model called "Icon", which generates weather forecasts based on an enormous amount of data. A normal computer could not cope with this amount of data.
Computer fills 33 cabinets
The computer is housed in 33 cabinets covering an area of 116 square meters. Compared to its predecessor, the "Piz Daint" supercomputer, "Alps" is 20 times more powerful. "A single cabinet of 'Alps' corresponds to almost the entire performance of 'Piz Daint'," said De Lorenzi.
In the Top500 list of supercomputers from June of this year, it was ranked sixth. At the time of the measurements for this list, it was only around 60 percent complete. It was only completed last week. De Lorenzi estimates that the computer could be a few places higher in the next ranking list, which is due to be published in November.
Five times as much energy as the Jet d'Eau
However, this list was not the decisive factor in the development of "Alps". "It was important to us that it could solve the tasks set by science well and efficiently," De Lorenzi clarified.
In order to carry out these calculations, "Alps" requires around 5.2 megawatts of energy in normal operation. About five times as much as the Jet d'Eau in Geneva. This makes "Alps" very efficient, said De Lorenzi. Although its predecessor had 20 times less computing power, it only consumed three to four times less electricity.
©Keystone/SDA
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