The Government has said that Ireland has passed a major milestone towards securing a new national supercomputer.
The Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) at the University of Galway, where the supercomputer will be based, has signed a hosting agreement ahead of the acquisition of the new system.
The ICHEC has also concluded a successful AI Factory Antenna bid.
The Irish "AIF IRL-Antenna" has been awarded €5m in European funding after an evaluation by the European High Performance Computing (EuroHPC) Joint Undertaking (JU), a figure that will be matched by national funding.
"I commend ICHEC and the University of Galway for securing these landmark results," Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science James Lawless said.
"The successful AI Factory Antenna bid and Hosting Agreement mark a major leap forward for Ireland's AI and computing capabilities," he said.
"These breakthroughs will open doors for researchers, developers, public bodies and institutions across Ireland, providing access to cutting-edge infrastructure, expert support and European AI networks," he said.
"From climate and health to transport and advanced manufacturing, this will accelerate innovation across every corner of our economy and society," Mr Lawless said.
The AI Factory Antenna will link directly to AI hubs in France and Luxembourg to provide access to computing infrastructure, technical support and training to help Irish innovators develop, test and scale AI models and applications.
AIF IRL-Antenna will be implemented by a consortium, led by ICHEC and including CeADAR (Ireland's centre for AI) as well as a network of enterprise accelerators (PorterShed, Dogpatch Labs, RDI Hub, Republic of Works, Advanced Innovation in Manufacturing) and digital skills networks (Innovation Technology AtlanTec Gateway, Digital Technology Skills Ltd) as associated partners.
The new supercomputer at the Irish Centre for High-End Computing will be called CASPIr, and follows on from the supercomputer Kay, which was commissioned in 2018.
"The collaboration agreement for the new supercomputer CASPIr heralds a new era of research capability for Europe, and Ireland's research community, and places University of Galway and our Irish Centre for High-End Computing at the helm of data driven study," said Professor David Burn, President of University of Galway.
"We can now look forward to the research community reaping the rewards of this next generation of supercomputing and data driven research as it drives University of Galway’s strategic focus on transformative data and AI to support interdisciplinary research addressing global challenges," Professor Burn said.
