Deucalion, Portugal's most advanced supercomputer, is a marvel of modern computing infrastructure. Comprising 1900 meters of optical fibre, 2359 high-speed interconnect cables, and housed in 26 racks, it represents a significant leap forward in computational power and capability for the country.

The event ‘The Role of Supercomputers in the Digital Transition and the Competitiveness of Companies and Organisations’ was held on 22 May at the Azurém Campus of the University of Minho.

The 2024 edition of the TOP500 brings exciting news. The Deucalion supercomputer, inaugurated in September last year, is ranked for the first time, marking the debut of this Portuguese infrastructure in the distinction.

On 21 December, the eyes of the supercomputing world were on Barcelona, where the latest supercomputer in the EuroHPC network, MareNostrum 5 (MN5), was inaugurated. The machine, which has a maximum performance of 314 Pflops (314 million billion calculations per second), represents a milestone in European science and technology and confirms the commitment to supercomputing.

The 4th edition of the Call for Advanced Computing Projects, launched by the Foundation for Science and Technology, is now open. With applications for the Deucalion supercomputer due by 8 February, the call is open to researchers, scientists and institutions from all over the country in a wide range of fields, including biology, medicine, engineering and social sciences.

On the 7th and 8th of November, the MACC team travelled to Vila Real to participate in the RNCA 2023 meeting. In this context, the new computing platforms for 2023/2024 were presented and the bridge between RNCA and European Supercomputing was discussed.

MACC was present at the Latin America High Performance Computing Conference 2023 (CARLA) through researcher João Barbosa, who was one of the leaders of the Advanced Computing Trends workshop.

"A step forward for Portugal". This is how Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa described the inauguration of the Deucalion supercomputer in Guimarães, addressing a room full of national and European personalities linked to science, technology, and education.

MACC participated in Encontro Ciência 2023, an important Portuguese event that gathers science and technology for three days.

MACC participated in this year’s edition of FCCN Unit Journeys, an event that gathered specialists from different fields of knowledge, as computing, innovation, connectivity and security. Our researcher João Barbosa represented MACC in a session dedicated to updates on the national advanced computing network (RNCA).

Currently, MACC is offering the following positions: Sysadmin and HPC DevOps Engineer.

What is advanced computing and how useful can be?

These questions were answered by MACC’s researchers last week, when they visited Trás-os-Montes and Douro University. There, they met with students but also researchers and teachers from the informatics filed. During the first talk, with the students, they shared their knowledge about advanced computing with introduction to HPC, presented use cases, and introduced Minho Advanced Computing Center.

Portuguese minister of Science, Technology, and Higher Education, Elvira Fortunato, paid a visit to Minho Advanced Computing Center, where the government delegation could see the developments in the installation of the Supercomputer Deucalion. It represents an investment of 20 million euros and is expected to be finished this autumn — is currently in the testing phase.

MACC’s director, Rui Oliveira, was at the EuroHPC Summit 2023, in Gothenburg, which had as the main topic the “European Supercomputing Excellence in the Exascale Era”. Deucalion, one of the next operational supercomputers in Europe, was part of the exhibition of the EuroHPC supercomputers.

The supercomputer BOB, operational since July 5, 2019, has completed its queues at MACC, marking the end of its productive tenure. During its lifetime, BOB supported multiple national and international research projects and significantly promoted cooperation between the scientific and business communities.

MACC’s director, Rui Carlos Oliveira, was invited to give a lecture about the Deucalion Supercomputer at the LNCC’s HPC Summer School “Escola Supercomputador Santos Dumont”. The School took place between January 16-24, 2023, remotely.

The Foundation for Science and Technology, I. P. (FCT). manages the National Network for Advanced Computing (RNCA) and seeks to aggregate the national advanced computing resources, promoting cooperation between the various centers involved and developing national and international partnerships with other entities.

Our researcher João Barbosa gave a presentation about the Deucalion Supercomputer and participated in a roundtable about the operational RNCA centers at this year’s RNCA Meeting, on November 15, in Lisbon, Portugal.

MACC’s researchers André Pereira and João Barbosa were invited by the Portuguese Navy to teach a three-day training course about High-Performance Computing. This training course took place at the Instituto Hidrográfico in Lisbon, between October 12 to 14, 2022.

Our researcher João Barbosa was invited by the Portuguese Navy to visit the tenth edition of REPMUS, which took place between September 12-22 in Tróia, Portugal.