OIL & GAS

The Military Applications Department (DAM) at the French Atomic Energy Authority (CEA) and Bull have signed a collaboration contract to design and build Tera 100, the future supercomputer to support the French nuclear weapons Simulation Program. This long-term project will consist of two phases:

• An initial R&D stage will enable the technologies needed by the new computer to be validated; these new technologies will have many repercussions in the future, both for industry and society
• A second phase will enable the CEA to acquire and implement TERA 100, the first petaflops system to be designed in Europe. To meet the needs of the CEA's Simulation Program, the supercomputer will stand out by its capacity to run a wide spectrum of applications, by the fine balance between its processing power and data throughput, as well as by its fault-tolerant capability. As a real multi-purpose system with extremely high levels of productivity, Tera 100 will also be developed on the basis of open source software and X86 architecture processors.

Significant investment in research and development Developing the new Tera 100 supercomputer will involve significant upfront research and development work. Bull and the CEA will combine their respective skills and expertise in this area: in particular, Bull will provide its know-how in the design and operation of high-performance servers, along with the software development expertise needed to operate large-scale systems; for its part, the CEA will contribute its expertise in specifications, computer architecture and application development, as well as its in-depth understanding of infrastructures for very large Data Centers. As a result, there will be several hundred highly-qualified engineers and researchers working on this project. Technologies supporting numerous areas of the economy Petaflops-scale technologies have strategic importance not only for university research but also for industry and employment more widely. High-performance computer simulation has become essential when it comes to modeling and simulation, particularly in areas such as aeronautics, energy, climatology, life sciences, finance and information processing, but also for sustainable development and energy saving. High-Performance Computing (HPC) has become a vital resource when it comes to investigation and simulation, as well as a major asset when it comes to competitiveness in research and industry, and a fundamental element of national sovereignty.