ICT: CRESCO supercomputer growing trend, 150 million computing hours in one year

The ENEA CRESCO supercomputer provided 150 million computing hours in one year to 150 users of research institutions and companies, as shown by the report High Performance Computing on CRESCO Infrastructure: research activity and results 2021, which collected the main results available in various research fields like materials science, energy, climate, nuclear technologies, molecular dynamics, plasma physics and biotechnology. The main users of CRESCO services include: the Cnr, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Rome Universities Sapienza and Tor Vergata, Federico II of Naples, of Calabria, of Florence and Polytechnic of the Marches and Madrid.

 “CRESCO's contribution to national research is growing, as shown from the first report of 2008 to today. The latest report counts 33 peer-reviewed articles illustrating the main findings by research groups in 2021 using ENEAGRID and CRESCO HPC clusters, testifying the importance of ENEA's HPC facilities for the national and international research community” pointed out Giovanni Ponti, head of the IT and ICT Systems Development Division at ENEA.

 “The great effort of the ICT dedicated to ongoing project activities, particularly in relation to the implementation of the PNRR, allows for further scientific collaborations and calculation requirements. In order to meet the new needs, we have been planning CRESCO upgrades, making ENEA leader in high-performance computing infrastructures available to the worldwide scientific community", concluded Ponti.

The report shows the wide spectrum of applications of high-performance computing, which has become an all-round enabling technology for science and engineering. Since 2008, ENEA's main computational resources are located at the Portici Research Centre, near Naples.