Discoverer gets an upgrade: The Bulgarian supercomputer enters the AI race

The Bulgarian supercomputer Discoverer will be upgraded with graphics processors and memory capacity that will make it suitable for tasks in one of the most attractive fields of activity today - artificial intelligence (AI).

Petascale Supercomputer - Bulgaria, the company managing the supercomputer, announced that it has signed a contract with the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), A1 Bulgaria and the technology company Eviden, which will carry out the system upgrade project.

The upgrade will increase Discoverer's operational performance and provide a new class of functionality to meet the growing needs of users – scientific communities and businesses,” the company said.

In other words, AI firms involved in neural network training, machine and deep learning, large language models and image recognition will become Discoverer's potential customers. The upgrade comes amid a craze for all things artificial intelligence over the past year and a half.

With its increased performance and capabilities, the supercomputer will be a strategic asset for the development of science and will support the development of applications of industrial and societal importance for Europe."

What features will be added to Discoverer?

• GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) partition to improve supercomputer performance. These new GPUs will be provided by Eviden.
• Long-Term Storage and Flash Storage systems are used for long-term data storage and for tasks requiring intensive calculations and a huge number of input and output operations. This will effectively expand Discoverer's memory as well as its capacity to accommodate the increasing computing demands. For these activities, the chosen supplier is A1 Bulgaria.
• Enhancement of Discoverer's Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) components by complementing existing UPS systems and providing another backup source of power in the event of other power channels being interrupted. These systems will also be supplied by A1 Bulgaria.

Discoverer, located in Sofia Tech Park, is the first of the European Union's supercomputers to be upgraded after its creation in 2021.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov