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The new Blue Lion supercomputer is part of the German national HPC infrastructure of the Gauss Supercomputing Center and will serve a wide range of research projects, combining classical simulations with artificial intelligence.
- Blue Lion is scheduled to be released in early 2027 and deliver 30x faster performance than its predecessor SuperMUC-NG” will be used for astrophysics, particle and quantum physics, fluid mechanics, natural sciences, life and cultural sciences and many other research disciplines
- The new supercomputer is based on next-generation HPE Cray technology and works with next-generation accelerators and processors from NVIDIA (NASDAQ:)
- Blue Lion is 100% direct liquid cooled with hot water up to 40 °C, which allows the use of waste heat
HOUSTON–( BUSINESS WIRE )–The Leibniz Supercomputing Center (LRZ) of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities has been commissioned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NISE: NISE: ) to build its next high-performance computer, called the Blue Lion. From 2027, Blue Lion will support state-of-the-art research in Bavaria and, as a system of the Gauss Center for Supercomputing (GCS), will also be used for outstanding national science projects. The contracts were signed on December 13, 2024. The total costs of EUR 250 million (1) are shared by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts (StMVK).
Flexible architecture for different applications
The architecture of the new high-performance computer is designed to execute and combine classic modeling and simulation workflows with artificial intelligence (AI) methods. More and more researchers rely on surrogate models for their modeling of flows, turbulence or climate events, for which classical simulation calculations are combined with pattern recognition or statistical data analysis. This allows them to calculate more scenarios in less time or to extend the models with more complex calculations.
To support these workflows, Blue Lion uses next-generation HPE Crai technology featuring NVIDIA’s next-generation accelerators and processors. The system will also deliver high-speed data transfers between Blue Lion’s compute and storage units via HPE Slingshot, a high-performance interconnect that transfers 400 gigabits of data per second and allows jobs to scale across the entire system. LRZ will also receive dedicated system management capabilities with HPE Performance Cluster Management, a management software tool that enables LRZ to efficiently monitor and manage large-scale supercomputers. With the latest cutting-edge technologies, Blue Lion gains more performance and scale to deliver approximately 30X more computing power (2), compared to SuperMUC-NG, the current high-performance LRZ computer.
New programming is required
The interaction of GPU accelerators and CPU cores in high-performance computers like Blue Lion requires a new way of programming software and algorithms. This enables the HPE Crai programming environment, which helps with the migration of scientific code to the new system. To enable users to effectively use accelerated supercomputer hardware, LRZ and HPE will offer workshops and courses starting in 2025, helping researchers optimize and port their applications. In addition, LRZ plans to work closely with the European team from Hewlett Packard Labs, and LRZ will also increase its support team by 50 percent by the time Blue Lion goes live.
Efficient and silent
In the future, it will be much quieter in the Twin Cube of the LRZ: Blue Lion will use 100% direct liquid cooling where hot water of 40 °C flows through racks in pipes. A water cooling system allows waste heat from the system to be reused “ LRZ already uses waste heat from its current supercomputer to heat its offices and could supply other organizations in the neighborhood in the future. Direct liquid cooling reduces operating costs and carbon dioxide emissions. Blue Lion also requires less space because server cabinets can be packed much more densely.
Quotes:
Getting a new supercomputer takes work, but it’s incredibly exciting. We can already look into the future of supercomputers. This raises the anticipation and even more excitement for how the scientific community will use this system to make even better progress in new areas of knowledge. At the end of the day, it’s not about having the fastest supercomputer, it’s about providing the best possible support for cutting-edge research with our high-performance infrastructure.
Prof. Dieter KranzlmA¼ller, head of the Leibniz Supercomputing Center
Supercomputing plays a key role for the progress of science and society, as well as for national competitiveness. LRZ’s Blue Lion is another big step towards strengthening Germany’s position as a leading region for supercomputing and AI innovation. Blue Lion will significantly enhance LRZ’s computing capabilities and also position them at the cutting edge with next-generation technologies that will set new standards for the future of supercomputing.
Heiko Meier, Executive Vice President and Chief Sales Officer, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Advances in supercomputing, with a focus on energy efficiency and sustainability, are essential to pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery and innovation. Blue Lion, powered by an NVIDIA accelerator and next-generation processor, will help researchers tackle complex challenges in multiple disciplines, from astrophysics to life sciences.
John Josephakis, global vice president of sales and business development for HPC and supercomputing at NVIDIA
footnotes:
| (1) |
Including operational costs until 2032 |
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| (2) |
Based on the High Performance Conjugate Gradient (HPCG) benchmark |
About Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NISE: HPE) is a global edge-to-cloud company that helps organizations accelerate results by discovering value from all their data, everywhere. Built on decades of reimagining the future and innovating to improve the way people live and work, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions as a service. With offerings that include cloud services, computing, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence, Intelligent Edge, software (ETR:), and Storage, HPE delivers a consistent experience across all clouds and edges, helping customers develop new business models, engage in new ways and increase operational performance. For more information, visit: www.hpe.com.
About the Leibniz Supercomputing Center (LRZ)
The Leibniz Supercomputing Center (LRZ) proudly stands at the forefront of its field as a world-class IT service and customer facility serving top universities and faculties in Munich as well as research institutions in Bavaria, Germany and Europe. As an institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, LRZ has provided a robust, holistic IT infrastructure for its users across the scientific community for almost sixty years. It offers a complete range of resources, services, consulting and support – from e-mail, web servers and Internet access to virtual machines, cloud solutions, data storage and the Munich Science Network (MVN). As a member of Germany’s Gauss Center for Supercomputing (GCS), LRZ serves as part of the national backbone for the advanced research and discoveries made possible by high-performance computing (HPC). In addition to existing systems, LRZ’s Future Computing Group focuses on evaluating new Ekascale-class architectures and technologies, developing highly scalable applications for machine learning and artificial intelligence, and system integration of quantum acceleration with supercomputing systems.
See the original version on businesswire.com: https://www.businessvire.com/nevs/home/20241213107128/en/
Media contacts:
Patrick Edlund
patrik.edlund@hpe.com
Sabrina Schulte
Sabrina.Schulte@lrz.de
Source: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
