Swiss unveil supercomputer Alps, with eye on AI

The supercomputer was developed to meet extreme data and computing scientific requirements

By AFP

Published: Sun 15 Sep 2024, 5:42 PM

Last updated: Mon 16 Sep 2024, 10:50 AM

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.

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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.

Andreas Krause, head of the AI Centre at ETH Zurich, said: "Alps makes it possible to train complex AI models for important applications, for example, in medicine and climate research."

The MeteoSwiss national weather service is already using Alps to produce a higher resolution weather prediction model that better reflects Switzerland's complex topography of mountains and valleys.

Parmelin said on X that Alps would be "opening new horizons, clearing the path for the future, placing Switzerland in pole position for scientific research".

CSCS deputy director Michele De Lorenzi told Switzerland's Keystone-ATS news agency it would take 40,000 years for a commercial laptop to perform the operations that Alps can do in a day.

The supercomputer is housed in 33 cabinets covering 116 square metres.