Hosting agreement with EuroHPC JU paves the way for Arrhenius

A hosting agreement has been signed between NAISS with Linköping University (LiU), and EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). This means that NAISS and LiU are now officially designated as hosts for the new European supercomputer Arrhenius.

Arrhenius is set to join EuroHPC JU’s fleet of supercomputers, and be accessible to researchers in academia as well as industry across Europe. The initial compute capacity is estimated at around 40 petaflops, making it one of the world’s top 20 supercomputers and among the top five in Europe.

“With expanded compute capacity, European researchers can tackle challenges ranging from materials science and medicine to logistics and AI. This is a great opportunity for Sweden, NAISS, and LiU to play a central role in future compute-intensive research,” says NAISS Acting Director Björn Alling.

Funding for Arrhenius is shared between the Swedish Research Council via NAISS (65 percent) and EuroHPC JU (35 percent). This directly reflects the distribution of Arrhenius’ resources: NAISS will allocate 65 percent of resources to Swedish projects, while EuroHPC JU will control and allocate 35 percent to European users.

Advantage for Swedish researchers

Björn Alling points out that Swedish users who apply for EuroHPC JU resources will have an advantage if granted allocations on the EuroHPC JU part of Arrhenius, since it can be operated in the same way as the Swedish part of the machine.

“We hope that Arrhenius will lower the barrier for Swedish users to apply for EuroHPC JU resources and thus pushing more of them out onto the largest computers in Europe.”

Strong user support

Historically, Swedish HPC (high-performance computing) has always had a strong focus on user support. This is something that NAISS may bring to the European table, according to Björn Alling.

“I believe that Sweden and NAISS can contribute to developing the European cooperation in this regard. With Arrhenius we will be qualified to take part in future EuroHPC JU calls, related to hardware as well as user support. It will make Sweden a full member of EuroHPC JU.“

Joint procurement process

Procurement preparations are already well underway. A tender will go out within the next few weeks. The procurement process will be managed jointly by NAISS, LiU, and EuroHPC JU.

Arrhenius is expected to come online in mid-2025. The hosting agreement, which defines roles, rights, and obligations for each party, covers the time required for procurement and then the next five years, which is the estimated lifespan of the machine. It is named after Swedish geologist and chemist Carl Axel Arrhenius who discovered the mineral gadolinite.

For more information about the hosting agreement, please contact Björn Alling.