Inauguration of new European supercomputer in Bulgaria

Today, Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, inaugurated the latest supercomputer of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking: Discoverer, in the Sofia Tech Park, Bulgaria. Bulgaria’s Minister for the Economy, Daniela Vezieva; the Minister for Education and Science, Nikolay Denkov; the Deputy Mayor of Sofia, Doncho Barbalov; and the Executive Director of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, Anders Dam Jensen, also participated in the ceremony. Commissioner Gabriel said:  “With the EuroHPC Discoverer, Bulgaria can foster research and be better integrated in pan-European innovation ecosystems. It will stimulate highly data intensive research in such areas as medicine, industry or security. This new supercomputer will aid European users in driving research and innovation, regardless of where they are located in Europe.” Discoverer will be capable of more than 4.5 petaflops (or 4.5 million billion calculations per second) of processing power. It will help boost research in the EU by, for example, providing high-powered modelling of molecular interactions, or running seismic wave impact simulations, as well as many other research applications in the areas of health, energy, or engineering. Discoverer is the third supercomputer inaugurated by the European High Performance Computing (EuroHPC) Joint Undertaking this year. It has previously inaugurated two other petascale supercomputers: MeluXina, in Luxembourg and Vega, in Slovenia. Four more supercomputers are underway: Karolina, in Czechia, Deucalion in Portugal, LUMI in Finland, and LEONARDO in Italy. In July 2021, the Council adopted the new EuroHPC Joint Undertaking Regulation, bringing a further investment of €7 billion to provide the newest supercomputers and quantum computers, and to support the EU’s ambitious research and innovation agenda. More information is available in this press release by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking.