Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Research and supercomputing facility

Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Location|

Barcelona, Spain

Coordinates| 41°23′22″N 2°6′58″E﻿ / ﻿41.38944°N 2.11611°E﻿ / 41.38944; 2.11611
Website| https://www.bsc.es/

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (Spanish: Centro Nacional de Supercomputación) is a public research center located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It hosts MareNostrum, a 13.7 Petaflops, Intel Xeon Platinum-based supercomputer, which also includes clusters of emerging technologies. In June 2017[update], it ranked 13th in the world.[1][2] As of November 2022[update], it dropped to 88th.[3] It is expected to host one of Europe's first quantum computers.[4]

## Location and management

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The Center is located in a former chapel named Torre Girona, at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), and was established on April 1, 2005. It is managed by a consortium composed of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (60%), the Government of Catalonia (30%) and the UPC (10%). Professor Mateo Valero is its main administrator. The MareNostrum supercomputer is contained inside an enormous glass box in a former chapel.

## Budget

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The Barcelona Supercomputing Center had an initial operational budget of €5.5 million/year (about US$7 million/year) to cover the period of 2005–2011. The center has had a very rapid growth and in 2018 had a workforce of around 600 workers and an annual global budget of more than 34 million euros.[5]

The Center has contributed to the development of the IBM cell microprocessor architecture.[6]

* MareNostrum 4 supercomputer at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (2017)

* MareNostrum 4 supercomputer at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (2017)

## Staff

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* Director: Mateo Valero[7]
* Associate director: Josep Maria Martorell[citation needed]
* Computer Sciences director: Jesús Labarta[8]
* Computer Sciences associate director: Eduard Ayguadé[9]
* Life Sciences director: Alfonso Valencia
* Earth Sciences director:[10]
* Computer Applications for Science and Engineering director: José María Cela[11]
* Operations director: Sergi Girona[citation needed]

## In popular culture

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The Barcelona Supercomputing Center appears in Dan Brown's 2017 science fiction mystery thriller novel Origin, as the home of the E-Wave device.

## Notes

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1. ^ "MareNostrum 4 begins operation". BSC-CNS. Retrieved 2022-11-27.
2. ^ "Top500 List - Supercomputer Sites". www.top500.org.
3. ^ "TOP500 List - November 2022 | TOP500". www.top500.org. Retrieved 2022-11-27.
4. ^ Granger, Gemma Garrido (2021-10-30). "Barcelona will be southern Europe's first quantum computing hub". Ara in English. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
5. ^ "BSC-CNS in Numbers". www.bsc.es.
6. ^ "Barcelona Supercomputer Center (BSC)". Bsc.es. Archived from the original on 2007-03-08. Retrieved 2011-09-03.
7. ^ "1. Summary". BSC-CNS. Retrieved 2022-11-27.
8. ^ "Jesús Labarta". Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
9. ^ "Eduard Ayguade home page (Technical University of Catalonia - Barcelona)". personals.ac.upc.edu. Retrieved 2022-11-27.
10. ^ "ICREA". www.icrea.cat. Retrieved 2022-11-27.
11. ^ "José María Cela". Barcelona Supercomputing Center.

## External links

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* Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF

National|

* Catalonia

Other|

* IdRef