Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, has signed a significant new contract with Supercomputing Wales, the national supercomputing research facility for Wales that will result in a world-first Atos and Dell EMC supercomputing Centre of Excellence.
This partnership will provide high performance computing facilities and big data research capabilities to a consortium of universities in Wales including Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth and Bangor Universities.
Supercomputing Wales is supported by EU funds and the contract will facilitate a step change in supercomputing activity across strategically important sectors for the Welsh economy, including nano-scale materials and advanced engineering; energy and the environment; and life sciences and health.
The research capability will be available to industry in Wales and across the world, and is poised to help secure greater research funding for Wales, while simultaneously creating more highly-skilled research jobs, increasing industry collaboration and boosting sustainability.
The agreement also includes community benefit provisions by Atos and its partners including in-depth technology workshops for staff, and guest lecturers by Atos scientific community experts.
Under the agreement, Atos, in partnership with Dell EMC, through the joint Atos Dell Supercomputing Centre of Excellence, will deliver a full suite of the latest in high performance computing equipment, software and services including a supercomputer, two BullSequana S Datalake appliances, and on-demand cloud-based supercomputing simulation and services powered by Extreme Factory, the HPC on-demand solution from Atos.
Professor Roger Whitaker, Academic Director for Supercomputing Wales said:
“I welcome this exciting milestone for high performance computing in Wales. Supercomputing Wales, with its supercomputing hub facilities and new group of Research Software Engineers, is a unique national technological asset that is crucial to underpin our scientific excellence in Wales”.
Speaking about the agreement, Samantha Toombs, Atos Client Executive for Wales, said:
“As a proud Welsh woman in technology, I am delighted to be working with Supercomputing Wales to bring world-class supercomputing and big data powered research capabilities to Welsh Universities. This is an exciting time for Wales, the country is already the fastest growing digital economy in Britain outside of London”.
While, Richard Rawcliffe, Vice President, UK Public Sector, Dell EMC has said:
“We are thrilled to be part of such an important partnership to help continue the great work already being carried out by universities across Wales. These universities are at the forefront of some exciting new technologies and we can’t wait to see what these new capabilities bring”.
Atos will harness its industry leading supercomputing capabilities to help unlock world-class research capabilities in Wales and place the country on a firm competitive footing worldwide.
