The government has promised to spend a minimum of NOK 1 billion (over €87 million Euro) over five years on Norwegian AI research. Work is now underway to upgrade the computing power needed to fulfil this commitment.
The contract has now been signed. Norway gets a new supercomputer. It was Hewlett Packard Enterprise Norway that won the tender at the end of May, with a contract value of NOK 225 million. The new supercomputer is the most powerful in Norwegian history and will contribute to a significant boost for national research and innovation within AI.
'This is a big step forward for Norway as a nation of knowledge. To keep up with the AI race, we must be less dependent on foreign players. We have to make sure that we have enough computing power ourselves. It is crucial to ensure Norwegian knowledge readiness and national security', says Research and Higher Education Minister Oddmund Hoel (Sp).
Heavy computing power for all Norwegian researchers
Supercomputers like this can perform large and complex calculations, often called heavy calculations, and are significantly faster than ordinary computers. This makes them indispensable tools for data-oriented research in areas such as medicine, climate, language and AI. Heavy-duty calculators are expensive, challenging to operate and require special expertise to use. It is therefore appropriate that the state itself owns national supercomputers that can be used by researchers, regardless of the research institution or field of study they are associated with, the Noerwegian government stated. The new machine will therefore be available to researchers all over the country.
Ground-breaking technology
Research in an increasing number of disciplines is data-driven, and the need for computing power is therefore almost insatiable. 'It is crucial that we invest in computing power and AI technology now, to ensure that Norwegian research does not lag behind in the years to come. The investment in the new supercomputer from Hewlett Packard represents a good step in the right direction, but much more is needed. Access to advanced technology like this, and specialized expertise to use it, will be essential for digital transformation in a number of sectors going forward', says Gunnar Bøe, day-to-day manager of Sigma2.
The state-owned company Sigma2 AS is responsible for purchasing and operating the national supercomputers in Norway. The installation of the new supercomputer will take place during the spring and summer of 2025 in the Lefdal Mine Datacenter at Nordfjordeid in Western Norway. Sigma2 secured data center capacity in the disused mine, which was converted into a data center in 2021. The services are operated in collaboration with the Universities of Bergen, Oslo, Tromsø and NTNU under the name Norwegian research infrastructure services (NRIS).
More about the new supercomputer
Supercomputers that are adapted to AI have very advanced and expensive processors called Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). They cannot be compared to those found in home PCs. The new supercomputer has the most advanced processors on the market today. Not only do they have an enormous computing capacity, they are also compatible with a wide range of software and programming languages that are used in data-driven research. This makes these processors very popular among researchers in many fields, especially within AI.
