The European Union has unveiled a cutting-edge supercomputer in Greece, operated by GRNET. The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and GRNET recently unveiled the Daedalus supercomputer. Situated at the Lavrion Technological Cultural Park in Athens’ National Technical University, the cluster boasts 85.69 petaflops of sustained performance and 115 peak petaflops.
Built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, it consists of over 265,235 Nvidia H22018 Grace Hopper Superchips and employs direct liquid cooling. Initially announced in 2012 and tendered in July 2014, Daedalus ranked 2,026th on the June 2016 Top500 list of most powerful supercomputers and placed 2,012th in the Green500 list for energy efficiency.
The supercomputer occupies a 6.3MW data center within the former Power Station building, covering 1,500 sqm (16,145 sq ft). A 2MW solar power system serves the Lavrion park for self-use, contributing to the facility’s energy requirements. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis commented: “Greece’s progress in technology, from trailing behind to leading the way, especially in the realm of Artificial Intelligence, has been truly exhilarating and remains ongoing.” I would like to express my gratitude to all those who contributed to the successful completion of this project.
I have observed the emotions in many individuals’ eyes, as I am aware of the immense effort you all put forth to achieve this milestone. Today, as a nation, we possess one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, which has been installed in a historically and culturally significant building, a testament to your hard work.
The €123 million ($40.3 million) initiative was supported by the EuroHPC JU (contributing 35%) and the ‘Greece 2.0’ National Recovery and Resilience Plan (covering the remaining 65%), the latter of which is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.. – GRNET. GRNET functions under the supervision of Greece’s Ministry of Digital Governance and assists in the implementation of the nation’s digital transformation plan.
In addition to this, it manages several data centers, which are located near Filippiada and at the University of Crete in Heraklion, situated on the island of Crete. The National Documentation Center of Greece is home to one of them. EuroHPC JU is a partnership between the EU, 35 European nations, and private companies to establish a supercomputing environment in Europe.
Launched in 2018 and based in Luxembourg, its objective is to create, deploy, enhance, and sustain a secure and interconnected supercomputing and quantum computing ecosystem. Additionally, it supports the growth of critical HPC skills for European science and industry. The EuroHPC JU has secured 12 supercomputers across Europe, with numerous other systems in progress or under consideration.
For further information, visit HPC & Quantum.
