Switzerland has acquired a new supercomputer. The “Alps” was officially inaugurated on Saturday by Federal Councilor Guy Parmelin at the Swiss Center for Scientific Computing (CSCS) in Lugano (TI). It is one of the most powerful computers in the world.
“The Alps are an expression of our vision of a future marked by knowledge and progress,” Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin declared on Saturday during the inauguration ceremony in Lugano.
It would take 40,000 years for a commercial laptop to be able to perform the operations that Alps can do in a day, explained CSCS Deputy Director Michele De Lorenzi.
Useful for climate research
The device has been developed to meet the highest scientific demands in terms of data processing and computation, ETH Zurich said in a press release. It will be used in particular in climate science, a field that often requires processing huge amounts of data, as well as in research into artificial intelligence (AI).
According to ETH, the supercomputer makes it possible to train complex AI models, for example in medicine or in climate research.
Moreover, the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology (MétéoSuisse) already uses the word “Alps”. Since June, a new model called “Icon” has been preparing weather forecasts based on a huge amount of data. A normal computer would not be able to process that much.
>> Read also: MeteoSwiss uses a new model to get better forecasts
Installed in 33 cabinets
The supercomputer is housed in 33 cabinets covering 116 square metres. For comparison, the “Alps” is twenty times more efficient than its predecessor, the “Piz Daint” supercomputer. In other words, “the Alps cabinet roughly matches the power of the Piz Daint,” notes Michele De Lorenzi.
In June, Alps was ranked sixth in the world's top 500 supercomputers. But at the time of the ranking, it was not yet fully built and had only reached 60% of its potential.
The completed device was delivered only last week, and according to Michele De Lorenzi, it may get a few spots in the next ranking, which will be published in November.
Five times the water jet in Geneva
But appearing at the top of the rankings is not what motivated the development of the device. “For us, it is important that it can solve the problems posed by science in an efficient way,” confirms Michele De Lorenzi.
To perform the required calculations, the Alps spend 5.2 megawatts of energy. That's five times more than the Geneva seaplane. That's why the Alps is so “efficient,” says Michele De Lorenzi. Its predecessor had 20 times less computing power, but consumed only three to four times less electricity.
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