The Council of Tenerifethrough the Technological Institute of Renewable Energies (ITER)put into operation the Anaga supercomputer, one of the most powerful in the country. The infrastructure will allow Tenerife to make a leap in quality in its offer for the implementation of technology companies. This equipment is also a fundamental piece of the ALiX project aimed at developing infrastructures aimed at creating an industrial fabric around ICTs on the Island. The new device will complement and expand the current features and speed of the Teide HPC, which will go from having a capacity of 260 TFLOP/s to 1000thus multiplying its performance by four.
The island councilor for Innovation, Enrique Arriaga, highlights that “this supercomputer is not only at the service of science and research, but it can also be used by specialized companies that require large data storage and analysis speed” . He adds: «The objective is set in the audiovisual sector and the development of artificial intelligence».
Arriaga explains that ITER and the Cabildo itself are already holding meetings with universities, reference centers and large companies so that they can make use of these facilities. The supercomputer is a key part of the Innovation Master Plan, the backbone for creating a favorable ecosystem on the Island for the implementation and creation of innovative companies. Three fundamental lines will work: the audiovisual and video game sector, renewable energies and technology.
the official visit
The first vice president of the Cabildo also visited the facilities of this new equipment, located in the facilities of the D-ALiX Data Processing Center. He did it together with the CEO of ITER, Elena Rodríguez; the coordinator of the Engineering Area, Jesús Rodríguez Álamo, and the Lenovo representative, Noam Rosen. In Granadilla de Abona, terrestrial and submarine communication networks converge, in addition to providing ICT equipment hosting services to Canarian companies and institutions, with a high level of availability and connectivity.
Noam Rosen explains that it is a great opportunity for Lenovo to work hand in hand with ITER and that there are many possibilities to continue the collaboration on other projects. He states in this regard that “they are entities committed to sustainability, innovation and research.” He stresses that “Lenovo is highly committed to promoting research in different fields and advancing the path of human development.”
Jesús Álamo assures that «today (yesterday) a further step has been taken in the work carried out by ITER for ten years in supercomputing to support different centers and companies that, otherwise, would not have the capacity or speed to work, research, store or cross data; this would only be found in remote places and at a much higher cost ».
In this case, Álamo details, «a commitment is made to a technology that uses computer graphics cards and allows many simultaneous calculations to be made in virtual reality, augmented reality and, above all, artificial intelligence, which until now was not possible. with Teide”.
These types of systems drive a revolution worldwide, as the basis for most of the new developments in artificial intelligence. This computational capacity allows optimization of other types of computation, in different scientific fields, and is directly useful in the development of virtual and augmented reality applications. A field of great potential with the emergence of initiatives such as the metaverse.
Technical details of a ‘monster’
The equipment consists of 16 nodes and each one has 4 GPU cards (Graphics Processing Unit), plus another additional one with 8 GPUs. Added to these are 4 of 1 GPUs. All this set of nodes is interconnected through very high bandwidth networks. This allows not only parallel computing, but full and high-capacity integration with the storage systems already available as part of TeideHPC. The supercomputer was acquired thanks to a subsidy –it finances 85% of the cost– from the Ministry of Science and Innovation. The total investment is around 793,427 euros.
