Atos delivers BullSequana X410 supercomputer to Swansea University

The largest NVIDIA A100 deployments within Wales, this high-performance supercomputer forms part of Atos’ existing relationship with Supercomputing Wales – an Atos and Dell EMC supercomputing Centre of Excellence partially funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Welsh Government.

Part of the ‘AccelerateAI’ initiative, also funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Welsh Government, this GPU-accelerated supercomputer will enable research groups with concentrations in mathematics, engineering, science and medicine across Wales to deliver advancements in cutting-edge AI research and in industrial applications.

The NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs installed within the BullSequana X410 supercomputer are highly parallel processors designed to boost computing. The integration of up to eight GPUs within a 2U form factor places this system at the forefront of today’s accelerated computing solutions, in terms of compute density, performance and cost-efficiency. The supercomputer will also leverage NVIDIA Mellanox HDR 200Gb/s InfiniBand's fast data throughout, extremely low latency, and smart In-Network Computing engines, enabling state-of-the-art performance for a broad range of HPC and AI applications that will further drive Swansea University's research.

The AI supercomputer will be based at Swansea University’s energy-efficient Bay Data Centre, where Atos will maintain the equipment and work closely with academics to help address their specific research needs.

Agnès Boudot, Senior Vice President, Head of HPC & Quantum at Atos, said: “The BullSequana will provide researchers across Wales with state-of-the-art hardware to enable new scientific advancements on machine learning and deep learning algorithms. As the first large-scale deployment of the NVIDIA A100 architecture, we believe this is an exciting milestone for supercomputing-enabled research in Wales, supporting its ambition to be a world leader in high-performance computing as part of the Supercomputing Wales project.”

Professor Biagio Lucini, Director of the Swansea Academy of Advanced Computing at Swansea University, said: “We are pleased that the delivery of this cutting-edge, AI BullSequana X410 supercomputer will empower academics across Wales to drive forward potentially ground-breaking discoveries. Building on the success of the Supercomputing Wales project, this highly innovative equipment will improve how AI is implemented into industry and used to solve research problems, while strengthening Wales’ position as a leading supercomputing hub.”

“HPC and AI have become the foundation on which we realize the solutions to the world’s most complex and challenging problems,“ said Rod Evans, EMEA Director for Supercomputing, Higher Education and AI at NVIDIA. “That is why NVIDIA has built the world’s most robust and complete AI supercomputing platform that provides the stability and performance required for HPC and AI researchers.”

Researchers from other Universities within the Supercomputing Wales consortium – including Cardiff, Aberystwyth and Bangor – will have access to the high-performance system, helping to support the country’s ambition to compete globally for research and innovation projects. In collaboration with local SMEs, the project will also accelerate adoption of AI methods in Welsh industry.