The project’s main objective is to develop an innovative energy management solution that will make the operation of supercomputers more sustainable, by analysing the degree of emissions from the electricity available, locally generated or not,  to meet the needs of the machine, in order to minimise the carbon footprint of the computational process.

With this project it will be possible to “create a support solution for sustainable supercomputing that can be scaled and replicated at data centres, contributing to the reduction of the ecological footprint of these energy-intensive users”, said Luís Seca, member of INESC TEC’s Executive Board and head of this project.

What role does INESC TEC play in the project?

This project will allow INESC TEC to “create science-based innovation in a sector that urgently needs solutions to reduce its carbon emissions, as well as to transfer knowledge and encourage sustainable practices among the community”, he added.

More specifically, INESC TEC’s mission in this project is to “specify requirements for electric energy conversion and storage equipment, and develop electric energy management algorithms, exploring artificial intelligence techniques”, concluded Luís Seca.

Project included in the National Strategy for Advanced Computing

It’s important to mention that the HPC project is aligned with the National Strategy for Advanced Computing, and it aims to place Portugal at the forefront of advanced sustainable computing at international level.

Sustainable HPC received €7.3M of funding, managed by the Ministry of Environment, whichwill support the project -, so that the Deucalion supercomputer, to be installed in the Minho Advanced Computing Center (MACC) may operate in the most sustainable way

The Sustainable HPC incentives contract was signed at the 2021 edition of Encontro Ciência, which took place from June 28 to 30 – by the Innovation Fund, the Energy Efficiency Fund, INESC TEC and INEGI.

The researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with INESC TEC.