In Frascati, Italy, in the heart of Esrin, the Italian headquarters of the European Space Agency (ESA), the Space HPC was inaugurated, a supercomputer designed to propel Europe into a new era of space exploration. This machine, created in collaboration with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), is a veritable data processing giant with a goal: to open unexplored horizons for research, development and innovation. The beating heart of Space HPC is its ability to quickly and accurately process the enormous amounts of data that satellites are constantly sending back to Earth. This computing power is not an end but translates into concrete support for small and medium-sized companies active in the space sector.
Impetus for space SMEs
The example is that of an SME developing new applications for Earth observation: thanks to Space HPC, this company will be able to test and perfect its products in a shorter time, accelerating innovation and competitiveness. The impact of this infrastructure goes far beyond business support. As Josef Aschbacher, director general of ESA, emphasized, the Space HPC provides a flexible supercomputing infrastructure. With this new infrastructure, ESA offers a flexible supercomputing environment to support research and development, testing and rapid benchmarking for ESA programs, industrial players and researchers.
SMEs, start-ups and labs, among others, will have access to resources that foster innovation and collaboration in the European space industry. Space HPC represents a critical infrastructure to power the connected digital economy, supporting the European Green Deal and the Digital Agenda. ESA continues to serve the space community on its journey to become more agile and effective, putting Europe’s citizens at the heart of its work.
Simonetta Cheli, director of ESA’s Earth Observation programs and head of Esrin, made it clear that the Space HPC will be ESA’s central point of reference for any high-performance computing needs related to research and development. This is especially true for ESA’s largest Earth Observation program, which finds in the Space HPC a key ally for data management and the development of new applications and services. ESA’s Space HPC supercomputer at ESRIN will be ESA’s central point of reference for any R&D-related high-performance computing needs, both for ESA’s Directorates and for our industrial partners. The Earth Observation program – ESA’s largest – is naturally a key player in the HPC domain, with a strong impact on data management and the development of new applications and services. This symbiotic relationship is facilitated by the proximity to Earth Observation data here at ESRIN.
Cutting-edge technologies for the unknown
The ESA Space HPC combines cutting-edge technology, environmental efficiency and versatility, making it a game-changer for the space industry. Its architecture consists of over 34,000 CPU cores and 108 NVIDIA H100 GPUs that provide five petaflops of computing power/performance. A 3.6 PB SSD storage solution with 500 GB/s bandwidth ensures smooth handling of large data sets; direct liquid cooling maintains energy efficiency with a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of less than 1.09. Finally, a tailor-made architecture with specialised partitions for general processing, two partitions for accelerated workloads and H100-based AI/ML.
The ESA Space HPC promises to offer several advantages, including easy access for fair and transparent allocation of resources. Sensitive data and intellectual property are fully protected. Scalability is in demand, and resources must be adapted to project needs as they evolve. Then, a collaborative environment is created to share knowledge and ideas and accelerate innovation and discovery and the promotion of collaboration across disciplines.
