Swiss unveil supercomputer Alps, with eye on AI

Switzerland on Saturday inaugurated its new supercomputer called Alps -- one of the world's fastest -- which it hopes will help place the country first for trustworthy artificial intelligence solutions.

The ETH Zurich university officially inaugurated Alps at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Lugano, southern Switzerland.

"Alps is an expression of our vision of a future characterised by knowledge and progress," Economy, Education and Research Minister Guy Parmelin said in a speech at the CSCS site.

In June, Alps was ranked as the world's sixth most powerful supercomputer. However, at the time it was not fully constructed and had only reached 60 percent of its potential.

The supercomputer was developed to meet extreme data and computing scientific requirements, and allows artificial intelligence to be utilised more fully.

It is the central part of an initiative "to position Switzerland as the world's leading hub for the development and implementation of transparent and trustworthy AI solutions", ETH Zurich said in a statement.

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