Organized by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), through the FCCN unit, the RNCA Meeting brought together experts and enthusiasts at UTAD for a two-day immersion in sharing and debating the latest trends, projects and synergies in the area of Advanced Computing.
On November 7th and 8th, the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD) hosted the 3rd Meeting of the National Network for Advanced Computing (RNCA), sponsored by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through its FCCN unit. The UTAD Geosciences Auditorium and laboratory complex hosted sessions, debates, roundtables, and workshops on advanced computing infrastructures and services in Portugal.
Invited national and international experts shared knowledge about advanced computing services and projects, highlighting the importance of High Performance Computing (HPC) and exploring synergies for developing skills in this area.
The discussions also addressed the new computing platforms planned for 2023/2024, European Supercomputing and ways of accessing national and European supercomputers.
UTAD, an active member of RNCA, headquarters of the Center for Advanced Computing Competence and Visualization (CCVCA), and host of this meeting, warmly welcomed all participants and was also the stage for the inauguration of new equipment that is now part of the new INCD operational center, now with operational representation in the north of the country.
The inauguration of the operational center was attended by representatives from INCD, FCT and UTAD and was followed by a visit to the UTAD Data Center, where the equipment is housed.
With a capacity of approximately 5,000 CPU cores and 4 petabytes of storage, this new operational center provides high-performance computing, high-throughput computing, and cloud computing services, complemented by data storage systems and services. The computing nodes are equipped with AMD Epyc processors with 512 gigabytes or 1 terabyte of RAM, interconnected by a low-latency 200 gigabits per second communication network.
Access to the resources of this new INCD center will be made available to the scientific community within the scope of the RNCA, namely through the Advanced Computing Project Competition (CPCA) of the FCT. The applications for the 4th CPCA, in which the new INCD resources are included, are open in the following modes: experimental access (A0), development access (A1) and regular access (A2).
The RNCA 2023 Meeting has thus established itself as a vital opportunity for the development of synergies, partnerships and skills within the advanced computing ecosystem in Portugal.
Presentations, photos and videos from the RNCA 2021 Meeting can be found at https://indico.fccn.pt/e/encontroRNCA2023.
