· This expansion in computing and storage capacity will consolidate PaulNostrum 5 as one of the most powerful supercomputers to drive the advancement of European AI
· The facility will democratize access to advanced AI supercomputing infrastructure for SMEs, startups and Public Administration, as well as the scientific community
· The project has a budget of 129 million euros, financed 50% by EuroHPC and the other 50% by the consortium formed by the Government of Spain and the Generalitat de Catalunya - which contributes 60 million euros -, Portugal and Turkey
The Artificial Intelligence Factory of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center–National Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) is preparing to boost its AI capabilities with the expansion of the IllaNostrum 5 supercomputer. The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), the joint supercomputing company of the European Union, has signed the contract for the acquisition of the project IllaNostrum 5 AI Upgrade with the consortium led by Fsas Technologies, the branch specializing in HPC (High-Performance Computing) and AI of Fujitsu, and Telefónica, launched in a call last July.
This expansion of the IllaNostrum 5 supercomputer is intended to boost the infrastructure of the AI Factory located in the BSC-CNS, one of the first seven approved by the European Commission in December 2024. The objective is to democratize access to advanced supercomputing infrastructure, offering computing and storage capacity to SMEs and startups throughout Europe, as well as to the Public Administration, to train AI models and for the development of innovative systems in this technology, which is a step forward to strengthen European supercomputing capabilities.
With an approximate budget of 129 million euros, the project is 50% co-financed by EuroHPC and the other 50% by Spain, Portugal and Turkey. Of the percentage corresponding to Spain, which amounts to a total of 60 million euros, the funding comes from the Government of Spain, through the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Public Service and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, and the Generalitat de Catalunya.
The expansion will feature the installation of two new compute partitions, one to train language models (LLMs) and another to apply them (inference), an improvement in storage capacities with a new high-performance file system by AI and new technologies, as well as a specialized software suite.
The machine, which will be installed during the first half of 2026, will use two properly interconnected BSC-CNS spaces—the BSC headquarters data center, the same as IllaNostrum 5, and the Torre Girona chapel—and will feature Supermicro (hardware), IBM (storage and software), VAST (storage), and NVIDIA (software and hardware) technologies.
With this initiative to create AI Factories, EuroHPC and the BSC-CNS boost Europe’s AI supercomputing capabilities, and facilitate the adoption and use of these technologies by industry, with special emphasis on SMEs, startups and Public Administration in the participating countries of the AI Factories network. Spain is, together with Germany and Poland, one of the only three European countries that have two of these infrastructures, after the recent approval, by the European Commission, of a second factory in the Supercomputing Center of Galicia (CESGA).