Supplier sought for £3m universities HPC deal

University consortium joining forces for High Performance Computing project

An IT supplier is being sought by a group of universities which are joining forces to purchase a High Performance Computing (HPC) facility.

According to a recently published tender document, the University of Loughborough is leading a procurement on behalf of itself and the universities of Aston, Birmingham, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Warwick, and Queen Mary University of London.

The project will be worth £3.2m including VAT, the document said.

The group's facility will be used for "both the running of locally developed codes and commercial packages".

The HPC system will be funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which is the main UK government agency for funding research and training in engineering and physical sciences. It invests more than £800m a year in projects in maths, materials science, IT and structural engineering.

"The consortium intends to spend approximately £3.2m including VAT on purchasing the computer system," said the tender document. "As a guide we expect that approximately £3m will be spent on the x86 and storage component with the remaining £200,000 on the OpenPOWER component."