The Discoverer supercomputer in Sofia Tech Park achieved and exceeded the planned computing power and performance during the tests in early June. Discoverer has shown a production power of 4,518 petaflops at 100% capacity, with a planned 4.44 petaflops, and the reported peak performance is 6,006.37 petaflops, with initially set 6 petaflops.
The results make it very likely that the petascale computer in Sofia will be included in the world ranking for supercomputer performance “Top 500”. Presence in the ranking of the most powerful machines on an international scale will place our country among the high-tech countries in the world and will turn it into a digital center for Southeast Europe, Sofia Tech Park commented. The documents required for inclusion in the ranking have already been submitted. The final list is expected to be published in late June.
Inside an operational mode, Discoverer will be used to develop new drug molecules, to test the components’ properties in designing them for buildings and cars through digital prototypes, to predict natural disasters, and more. The computing power of the supercomputer will find applications in many scientific fields such as personalized medicine, bioengineering, bioinformatics, pharmacy, quantum chemistry, and biochemistry, combating climate change, and others. The consortium is already talking to private companies that are interested in Discoverer because of the machine’s ability to process large amounts of data in a very short time – for projects in the field of artificial intelligence, financial technology, market forecasting, and more.
Discoverer will perform European tasks utilizing 35% of its capacity, and the remaining 65% will be for projects in Bulgaria, the Business Development Manager at Petascale Supercomputer – Bulgaria Simeon Stoyanov said in an interview with the BNR. In his words, the computer must perform a mix of scientific and applied tasks, both for the public and the private sector, so that the project can start to be self-sustaining and upgrade as soon as possible without relying entirely on the state or European funding. One of the directions for the development of the petascale computer in our country is the addition of a module for the simulation of a quantum computer.
Discoverer is part of the EuroHPC JU European network of high-performance machines together with 4 other powerful machines located in Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Portugal, and Slovenia. The project is funded by the budgets of the Bulgarian state and EuroHPC JU and is managed by the “Petascale Supercomputer – Bulgaria” consortium, in a leading partnership with Sofia Tech Park. The machine is supplied by Athos, a global leader in the field of digital transformation.
