Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has selected American multinational information technology company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to build its next-generation supercomputer, Shaheen III.
The new supercomputer aims to deliver state-of-the-art supercomputing and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for advancing research in fields such as food, water, energy, and the environment.
Shaheen III, set to be 20 times faster than KAUST’s existing system, will be the most powerful supercomputer in the Middle East to address critical areas that have a societal and environmental impact.
According to the statement, the new Shaheen III system will revolutionize KAUST’s ability to process vast amounts of data at immense speed and scale, enabling its users to realize new potentials for AI.
Dr. Tony F. Chan President KAUST
“The new HPE Cray EX system will allow us to conduct research on a larger scale, resulting in significant scientific, economic, and social advances. In line with Vision 2030, we strive to meet the ever-increasing demands of our active and solutions-driven faculty, and also those of external partners, for faster and more efficient computing resources. KAUST supercomputing resources are used by more than half of our faculty, students, postdoctoral students and researchers, and researchers from more than 20 external organizations in the Kingdom.”
Shaheen III will be built using the HPE Cray EX supercomputer, a next-generation platform architected to support unprecedented performance and scale, including achieving exaflop speed.
The HPE Cray EX supercomputer allows KAUST to apply significant computational power toward modeling and simulating scientific problems faster and with higher accuracy.
“At HPE, our purpose is to advance the way people live and work, and we are honored to help fuel Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 for a new era of innovation by empowering KAUST with a state-of-the-art supercomputer. “Shaheen III will significantly accelerate research at KAUST by applying world-leading supercomputing and AI-at-scale capabilities to increase accuracy in analyses and solve complex scientific questions,” said Mr. Antonio Neri, President, and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Shaheen III will be fully operational in 2023. “The new supercomputer will process unique data sets in focus areas such as clean combustion, Red Sea ecosystems, climate modeling, and the Arabian tectonic plate while delivering analyses, models, and simulations at a superior level of resolution,” as per the statement.
