Over the next two years, 36 million euros will flow into a new, powerful computer infrastructure. This will create the “Multi-Site Computer Austria” (MUSICA) in Vienna, Linz and Innsbruck, which is expected to reach 40 petaflops by 2025 – and therefore twice the computing power estimated in the original plans. The federal government has increased the initially planned resources of 20 million euros, it was said on Monday.
Last year, the latest Austrian supercomputer “Vienna Scientific Cluster 5” (VSC-5) was launched with a total performance of 4.3 petaflops – one petaflop means one quadrillion calculation operations per second. He reached the then top 500 of the fastest supercomputers in the world at 80th place.
If “MUSICA” were to enter the current rankings, the mainframe would end up around 20th place, Minister of Education Martin Polaschek (ÖVP) said at the “Science Center” of the Vienna Technical University (TU) in the Arsenal in Vienna. Landstraße.
Fastest computers in Austria
It currently houses Austria’s fastest computers, the VSC-4 and VSC-5, and the first part of the new infrastructure is expected to be available from 2024. The system components in Innsbruck and Linz still require adjustments to the building, so the start here is a little later, explains MUSICA project manager Ernst Haunschmid from TU Vienna.
The fact that three locations are now used leads to more resistance or ‘resilience’ in the system. The concept also makes it possible to connect the new supercomputer in Innsbruck to the quantum computing infrastructure there, explains Florian Tursky (ÖVP), the State Secretary responsible for digitalization.
This connection between the classical computing world and quantum computers, which are based on completely different principles, is one of the reasons why the MUSICA project was initially financed with 20 million euros through the ‘Quantum Austria’ research offensive, which was financed by the EU reconstruction fund “ NextGenerationEU”. The additional 16 million can create a “truly state-of-the-art computing infrastructure” that will “significantly improve” opportunities for scientists and companies in Austria, Polaschek said. The additional resources are part of his department’s budget for 2024.
Universities from all over Austria are involved
In addition to TU Vienna, the University of Linz and the University of Innsbruck, TU Graz, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (Boku) Vienna and the University of Vienna are also involved in the MUSICA network. Rector Jens Schneider of TU Vienna described the current increase as a “real boost”. Such computing power is now needed in many research areas – from computer science and materials science to biology or climate research, but also in the further development of all kinds of artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
The combination of classical and quantum computing also makes it possible to train young researchers, etc. in both technologies and to solve fundamental research questions. Research into computer use on a supercomputer system that is spread over multiple locations is also very interesting from a scientific point of view.
Last but not least, MUSICA would also provide new opportunities in many sectors of the economy. Schneider was confident that new capital could be brought to the sites as part of the seed funding. If a company needs this kind of computing power to develop a product or technology, it should find the opportunity to do so in Austria – also so that it does not necessarily have to pass all the data to external service providers, says Tursky: “The digital solutions should also come from Austria.”
Source: Krone
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