The Petascale Supercomputer Bulgaria Consortium has signed a contract with the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), the telecommunications and digital solutions company A1 Bulgaria and the Czech technology leader Eviden on a project to upgrade the systems of the Discoverer high-performance machine (www.discoverer.bg), positioned in Sofia Tech Park.

The Bulgarian Supercomputer will be upgraded with GPUs and memory that will improve the machine’s performance and enable additional specialized services to be provided to companies working in the field of artificial intelligence. The upgrade will increase Discoverer’s operational performance and provide a new class of functionality to meet the growing needs of users – scientific communities and businesses.

The upgrade of the high-performance machine is under a EuroHPC procedure in which the Petascale Supercomputer Bulgaria Consortium participated at the end of 2023. Discoverer is the first of the European Union’s supercomputers to be upgraded since its creation in 2021.

The following components will be added to the current Discoverer systems:

• GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) partition to improve supercomputer performance. The new graphics processors will be provided by Eviden.
• Two new Long Term Storage and Flash Storage systems for long term data storage and for tasks requiring intensive computation and a huge number of input-output operations. This will effectively expand the memory and capacity of the high-performance machine to meet increasing computational demands. A1 Bulgaria is the selected supplier for these activities. Discoverer currently has one of the largest CPU (Central Processing Unit) batches in Europe.
• Improving Discoverer’s UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) components by adding to the existing uninterruptible power supply systems and providing another backup power source in case of disruption to other power channels. The planned installation of an additional UPS will increase the fault tolerance of the supercomputer. These systems will be supplied by A1 Bulgaria.

Through the new GPU partitions and data storage systems, the machine will be advanced and specialized for neural network training, working with large language models, artificial intelligence, creating digital doubles, machine learning and other computational tasks.

The updated Discoverer will continue to provide a wide range of services to the research communities, businesses and the public sector in Europe. With its enhanced performance and capabilities, the supercomputer will be a strategic asset for the advancement of science and will support the development of applications of industrial and societal importance for Europe.

With the upgrade of Discoverer, the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking seizes the opportunity to ensure the cost-effective implementation of its mission to deploy a world-leading supercomputing infrastructure in Europe.

More about Discoverer

The Bulgarian Petascale Supercomputer “Discoverer”, which is part of the European Union’s High Performance Computing Network – the Joint Undertaking for High Performance Computing – EuroHPC JU, has a computing power of 4.5 petaflops and a peak performance of 6 petaflops. The machine is in the TOP 500 global ranking for high-performance machines. The Discoverer project was funded by the Bulgarian national budget and EuroHPC JU.

Discoverer is managed by the consortium “Petascale Supercomputer Bulgaria” with participants Sofia Tech Park AD, Association “National Center for Computer Applications” and Strategic Center for Artificial Intelligence. The organization brings together the knowledge and over 15 years of experience of Bulgarian scientists and engineers.

More information about Discoverer: https://sofiatech.bg/petaskeyl-superkompyutar/

More information about EuroHPC: https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/index_en