Today, June 25, the Ministry of Digital Governance announced the launch of an open international tender for the creation of the new supercomputer "Daedalus." The aim is to upgrade the country's public digital infrastructure.

The National Recovery and Resilience Plan "Greece 2.0" has a total budget of €41.9 million (including VAT), with funding from the European Union (NextGenerationEU), the Public Investment Programme, and the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU).

The subject of the tender is the supply and installation of advanced computing equipment, storage space, and software for the implementation of the new high-performance computing system in the new Data Center at the Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park (LCP).

The deadline for submission of tenders is September 2, 2024, and the tender will be conducted electronically through the "Procurement" system of ESHIS at www.promitheus.gov.gr with the tender code 352893. The responsibility for the development and operation of the DAIDALOS supercomputer lies with the National Network of Infrastructures for Technology and Research (EDYTE S.A., GRNET), a body of the Ministry of Digital Governance.

What will it offer?

It is worth noting that the new national supercomputer "Daedalus" will be the largest in the country and among the most powerful in Europe and is expected to be included in the list of the world's top 500 systems in terms of performance (TOP500) and energy efficiency (GREEN500).

The architecture of the new supercomputer is ideally suited to accommodate the largest and most heterogeneous applications, combining high-performance computing with AI, machine learning and big data analytics.

It is expected to play a central role in, among other things, research to develop new, more efficient and reliable services for serving citizens through natural language requests, personalised medicine, fire protection, and spatial planning, but also for smart mobility and autonomous vehicles.

It is important to note that Daedalus will use cutting-edge cooling systems and renewable energy sources to ensure low energy costs and minimal environmental impact.  It is expected to have a power of >60 Petaflops and will be 120 times more powerful than the existing ARIS supercomputer, performing sixty million billion (i.e., sixty quadrillion minus 60,000,000,000,000,000) mobile subspace operations per second. In addition, it will be hybrid, featuring both high-density central processing units (CPUs) and accelerator units.

The Asset Exploitation and Management Company (EADIP-EMP) of the National Technical University of Athens will provide a space for the supercomputer installation design to take place at the Lavrion Technological Cultural Park. The preparation for the configuration of the electromechanical equipment and facilities of the new data center in the building of the former electric station is a joint effort between the specialized staff of EDYTE-GGRNET, with many years of experience in the operation of data centers, a team of selected architects of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), and the staff of the Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park (LAPP), which owns the premises.

The project is part of the strategy to strengthen the country's public digital infrastructure, an action of the Digital Transformation 2020–2025 Paper of the Ministry of Digital Governance.