Lenovo delivers the worlds largest next-generation Intel-based Supercomputer at Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Game-changing research enabled to solve the world’s most challenging problems

NEW YORK and FRANKFURT – June 19, 2017 – Today, at International Supercomputing Conference (ISC2017), Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) announced that it has completed the delivery and implementation of the world’s largest, next-generation Intel-based Supercomputer at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). The 11.1 petaFLOP[1] Supercomputer called MareNostrum 4, will be housed in the world’s “most beautiful data center” at the Chapel Torre Girona at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain, and will be used to power diverse science from human genome research, bioinformatics and biomechanics to weather forecasting and atmospheric composition. This new system, which will continue to grow over time, is listed at #13 on the latest TOP500 (top500.org) list that was released today.

“The fast delivery, installation and optimization of the MareNostrum 4 system at BSC, showcases Lenovo’s end-to-end, high-performance computing strength,” said Kirk Skaugen, President of Lenovo Data Center Group. “Building on our 25 years of history in x86 server computing and our number one position in x86 server customer satisfaction and reliability, our goal at Lenovo is to be the largest supercomputing company on earth helping solve humanities biggest challenges through the rapid advancement of technology and innovation.”

The system is powered by more than 3,400 nodes of Lenovo’s next-generation servers, featuring Intel® Xeon® scalable processors, interconnected with more than 60 kilometers of high-speed, Intel Omni-Path Technology 100 Gb/s network cabling. It is the third leading-edge HPC system that Lenovo has installed at the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE), making Lenovo the largest provider of leading-edge HPC systems to this high impact scientific community, and solidified Lenovo’s position as the fastest growing supercomputer company in Europe.

“From the lab to the factory, to the on-site implementation teams, the delivery of a system of this size and complexity demands a superior level of integration and skill,” said Madhu Matta, VP & GM of High Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence at Lenovo. “It requires a focus on a holistic customer experience that very few companies are capable of delivering.”

Proven Global HPC Leader

Since its debut on the Top500 list in 2014 Lenovo has become the fastest growing TOP500 vendor in the world[2]. Lenovo is #2 in global TOP500 positions with 92 entries. Lenovo is #1 in supercomputing in China, the largest and fastest growing region for supercomputing in the world, claiming 50% more entries than the nearest competitor.

In a continuing commitment to give clients access to new technology, Lenovo is also upgrading its Global HPC Innovation Center based in Stuttgart, Germany with 6,000 cores of the next-generation Intel Xeon scalable processors and the newest NVIDIA GPUs interconnected with a choice of industry-leading, high performance fabrics from Mellanox and Intel. The HPC Innovation Center was opened in May 2015 to collaborate with clients and give them access to the newest technologies and to experience the same systems that are powering the BSC MareNostrum 4 Supercomputer, right now before they are shipping in volume. Full system upgrade to be completed in August 2017.

An example of the industry collaboration driven by the Global HPC Innovation Center is at the University of Birmingham who has built a centerpiece research facility called Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR). BEAR is a collection of IT resources provided without cost to the University community and qualified external scientists, enabling the acceleration of their research across a variety of disciplines such as life sciences including genome sequencing, medical and linguistic research.

“Genome sequencing can generate rapid insights into the scale and patterns-of-spread of important epidemics. When Zika struck the Americas, we were able to respond rapidly by deploying portable sequencing to affected areas, generating sequence data in days,” said Professor Nick Loman, Professor of Microbial Genomics and Bioinformatics at the University of Birmingham. “Comparative genome sequence analysis requires significant computation and storage requirements. The new system provides rapid, on-demand computation to speed up the analysis. We can instantly access hundreds of CPUs, thousands of gigabytes of RAM and tens of terabytes of storage. This means we can keep pace with the rapid data generation, and quickly release important new findings to the scientific and public health community in order to assist epidemic response efforts.”

Availability

Access to the Lenovo HPC Innovation Center is open to all clients – contact your Lenovo sales representation or partner to learn more.