The Repsol-backed Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) has announced ‘MEEP’ the MareNostrum Experimental Exascale Project a next-generation, ‘full stack’ open source software and hardware facility. BSC, in collaboration with ARM and others is to develop open-source RISC-V chips and software ecosystem. MEEP will leverage field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to develop the chips. MEEP’s software development will translate into a proof-of-concept for industrial usage, enabling next-generation exploration of computer architecture as well as software development of existing and future HPC applications, including emerging artificial intelligence workloads. The EU-funded MEEP project MEEP will run for three years with a budget of €10.3 million.
Repsol’s involvement is couched in environmentally friendly terms, such as ‘sustainable energy’ and ‘following the company’s decarbonization policy’. Notwithstanding these noble goals, BCS a long history of seismic research, notably with the from the 2006 Kaleidoscope project. 2010 saw the creation of the Repsol-BSC Research Center. The collaboration also extends to the construction of a new facility in Barcelona which will house BSC’s MareNostrum 5 supercomputer which will run the MEEP codes. MareNostrum 5 is to start installation year end 2020 with a €217 million budget for completion by 2025. The initiative sets-out, inter-alia, to defend EU ‘technological sovereignty’. Last December, Repsol president Antonio Brufau received a ‘national’ public-private R&D award from the Catalan Government on behalf of the Repsol–BSC joint research center. More from BSC.
© Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.