Barcelona Supercomputing Center
Encyclopedia
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. It hosts MareNostrum
MareNostrum
MareNostrum is a supercomputer in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the second most powerful in Spain. It was presented by IBM and María Jesús San Segundo, the Spanish Minister of Education and Science...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
's 25th most powerful (and the world's 77th most powerful) supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
as of November 2009.
The Center is located in a former chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
named Torre Girona, at the Technical University of Catalonia (also known as UPC) and was constituted on April 1, 2005. It is managed by a consortium
Consortium
A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....
composed of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (51%), the Government of Catalonia
Generalitat de Catalunya
The Generalitat of Catalonia is the institution under which the autonomous community of Catalonia is politically organised. It consists of the Parliament, the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Government of Catalonia....
(37%) and the UPC (12%). Professor Mateo Valero
Mateo Valero
Mateo Valero is a Spanish computer architect. Valero received the Eckert-Mauchly award of the in 2007, for "extraordinary leadership in building a world class computer architecture research center, for seminal contributions in the areas of vector computing and multithreading, and for pioneering...
is its main administrator. The MareNostrum
MareNostrum
MareNostrum is a supercomputer in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the second most powerful in Spain. It was presented by IBM and María Jesús San Segundo, the Spanish Minister of Education and Science...
supercomputer is contained inside an enormous glass box.
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center has an initial operational budget
Budget
A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...
of €
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
5.5 million/year (about US$7 million/yr) to cover the period 2005–2011.