FCT, UMinho, and UTAustin sign agreement to establish the Minho Advanced Computing Center

The installation of the first supercomputer in Portugal, together with the creation ofthe Minho Advanced Computing Center (MAAC), will be formalized this Saturday, November 25, through the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), the University of Texas at Austin (UTAustin), and the University of Minho (UMinho). The session will take place from11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the UMinho General Library on the Gualtar Campus in Braga.

The signing will take place during a session attended by the Minister of Science, Technology, and Higher Education, Manuel Heitor, the President of FCT, Paulo Ferrão, the President of the Northern Regional Coordination Commission, Fernando Freire de Sousa, and the outgoing and incoming Rectors of the University of Minho, António Cunha and Rui Vieira de Castro, respectively, as well as researchers, entrepreneurs, and various representatives from scientific institutions and companies.

This new computing infrastructure includes twenty racks from the STAMPEDE 1 advanced computing platform, provided to FCT by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at UT Austin as part of the International Partnership between the University of Texas at Austin and Portugal, enabling the development of new areas of computing in Portugal, as well as various scientific and business applications in areas covering climate, maritime safety, fisheries support, monitoring of mobility patterns in cities, stimulation of biodiversity, forest risk management, and health applications, including bioinformatics.

Among other potential applications, this computing infrastructure will serve the AIR Centre, recently created by the "Florianópolis Declaration," signed on June 20 at the initiative of Portugal in close international cooperation. The MACC will serve as the basis for establishing the"AIR CENTRE DATA INTELLIGENCE NETWORK (AIR_DataNet), to be developed during 2018 together with the Texas Advanced Computing Centre (TACC) at UT Austin and the Barcelona Supercomputer Centre (BSC), among other international partners involved in the AIR Centre, in order to facilitate the development of data sciences and applications for climate-ocean interaction. 

This new infrastructure is also part of the ongoing national effort under theNational Digital Skills Initiative e.2030 (INCoDe.2030)which, under the coordination of FCT, includes the stimulation of new R&D activities in the areas of scientific computing, quantum sciences and technologies, artificial intelligence, and digital media.

Also in this context, Portugal was one of the signatory countries of the European Declaration for the advancement of advanced computing, EuroHPC, on March 23, 2017, in Rome, which aims to establish the intergovernmental framework that will enable the development and operation of the next generation of European advanced computing infrastructure.

The new infrastructure, owned by FCT, will be installed in the first quarter of 2018 at the University of Minho, complementing existing resources in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley and Central regions. Its operation will be fully integrated into national, European, and international networks in fully open access modes, facilitating the adoption ofthe National Open Science Strategy. The management of this new infrastructure is the responsibility of a committee of experts, including users, coordinated by FCT's advanced computing services.