The Deucalion and MareNostrum 5 supercomputers, funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), recently contributed to a significant advance in advanced computing, as they both entered the production phase. This stage boosted the implementation of several projects within the scope of the 4th Computer Projects Competition. The call for applications, organized by FCCN, FCT's digital services department, closed at the end of May.
Deucalion: the Portuguese supercomputer is already in production
Deucalion is on! Portugal's largest supercomputer is a remarkable piece of infrastructure: it boasts 1,900 meters of fiber optic cable, 2,359 high-speed interconnect cables, and 26 racks, housing unprecedented processing power. With a peak performance of 10 petaflops, thanks to its two clusters with three partitions, Deucalion is now available to power the development of research, technology, and innovation projects.
This machine offers essential capabilities for extremely complex calculations and advanced simulations, allowing national research projects to achieve their objectives more quickly and efficiently.
The first projects
Among the first 15 national projects in Deucalion, approved in the 4th edition of the Competition, are themes from a wide variety of scientific areas, ranging from the optimization of future vehicles, to the study of gravitational waves in astronomy, to the analysis of molecules involved in neurological diseases.
There are more than 136 million CPU core hours and 115 thousand GPU hours of high-performance computing dedicated to advancing national science and innovation.
MareNostrum 5: Portuguese participation in a European supercomputer
THE MareNostrum 5, located in Spain, is also available for national projects.
Portugal has access to 5% of this infrastructure's capacity, with 45% shared between Spain and Turkey. The remaining 50% are allocated to competitions managed by the European supercomputing initiative EuroHPC JU.
The collaboration between Portuguese institutions and this European supercomputer reflects a joint effort to strengthen Portugal's scientific and technological capabilities.
MareNostrum 5, with its immense processing and acceleration capacity, is now available for use in high-impact advanced computing projects. Access to the pre-production phase is published at: Expressions of Interest – FCT.
To date, the first 11 national users with prior experience have been sent to the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, pioneering the testing and optimization of their projects in the 2 largest partitions of MareNostrum 5.
Opportunities through EuroHPC JU
Both supercomputers, Deucalion and MareNostrum 5, are accessible from EuroHPC Joint Undertaking competitions (EuroHPC JU), opening new possibilities for Portuguese researchers and institutions and providing them with access to a new design that enriches the diverse and complementary set of computing architectures already made available by EuroHPC systems.
Computing resources for research and innovation
The FCT's Advanced Computing Projects competitions aim to contribute to increasing the national and international competitiveness of science and technology, supporting innovation and knowledge transfer. Access to Deucalion and MareNostrum 5 is available in several ways, from Experimental Access for beginners to Larger Access for projects that require more time and large amounts of computing resources.
With the Deucalion joins the list of the 500 most efficient supercomputers in the world, Portugal solidifies its position on the global advanced computing scene, providing its scientists and innovators with the tools they need to tackle large-scale scientific and technological challenges.
For more information on how to participate and take advantage of these resources, interested parties can visit:
