All posts tagged: Computer Science

Powering Europe’s HPC ecosystem with ARM systems and software stack

Powering Europe’s HPC ecosystem with ARM systems and software stack

Published by skeptic

EUPEX Pilot aims to demonstrate Europe’s capability to build ARM-based systems and a software stack designed for diverse European HPC requirements The ability to build and operate powerful supercomputers is now a key factor shaping technological independence and Europe’s position on the global stage. As major investments continue to flow from the United States and Asia, Europe faces a growing challenge: developing its own technologies while remaining competitive at the highest level. EUPEX, a European project funded by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, directly addresses this challenge by developing a pilot supercomputing platform entirely based on European technologies, from the hardware to the software stack. The platform will use new ARM-based processors designed for the performance, energy efficiency, and scalability needed in next-generation HPC systems, offering a tangible step toward Europe’s computing independence. The pilot will assemble these processors within a modular architecture and couple them with European-developed software solutions, providing a realistic environment to test readiness, scalability, and operational reliability. In doing so, EUPEX Pilot aims not only to prove that Europe can deliver competitive, …

Estonia digital innovation in high-performance computing

Estonia digital innovation in high-performance computing

Published by skeptic

Estonia is considered one of the most advanced digital societies in the world. For further innovation, a carefully developed e-infrastructure must be a central pillar When Estonia’s first computer cluster became available in 2008, its capacity was relatively modest by global standards – 42 Sun Fire nodes with eight cores each, 32 GB of RAM, 10 TB of shared storage, and only a small team responsible for maintaining the system. However, this marked only the beginning. A few years later, the computing clusters of Estonian universities were merged into a shared national infrastructure. This development led to the creation of the consortium called the Estonian Scientific Computing Infrastructure (ETAIS). This consortium represents a nationwide e-infrastructure that provides cloud services, classical high-performance computing (HPC), and data repository resources. Its aim is to enhance the competitiveness of Estonian research in computing- and data-intensive disciplines by providing access to a modern scientific computing environment. All ETAIS services are also open to businesses and the public sector. Today, ETAIS has grown to become the largest provider of computing power …

Innovation in semiconductors depends on new measurement methods, and the UK can take a leading role

Innovation in semiconductors depends on new measurement methods, and the UK can take a leading role

Published by skeptic

Sebastian Wood, Principal Scientist at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), stresses the importance of measurement standards when accelerating semiconductor technology The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is running into a physical wall. As AI models become exponentially more powerful, the hardware underpinning them is struggling to keep up. The semiconductor industry, which has been driven by the miniaturisation of silicon chips, is now facing fundamental limits in power consumption, thermal management, and data transfer speeds. Hardware innovation was once the key enabler of breakthroughs, but it has become increasingly challenging to pioneer further as the technology has become more complex. To continue to push innovation, measurement has become the critical driver. This challenge has ignited a wave of innovation. Across research labs and industry, new materials and architectures are fast emerging to fill the gap. 3D-stacked chiplets, high-bandwidth interconnects, and neuromorphic designs that mimic the human brain are no longer just theoretical concepts. Even emerging technologies such as 2D materials as transistor channels, and diamond heatsinks are increasingly seen as essential next steps. But as the …

Propelling manufacturing, aerospace and defence innovation through applied research

Propelling manufacturing, aerospace and defence innovation through applied research

Published by skeptic

The Centre for Innovation and Research in Advanced Manufacturing and Materials (CIRAMM) at SAIT is enhancing applied research capacity in aerospace, defence, and manufacturing sectors. At the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the Centre for Innovation and Research in Advanced Manufacturing and Materials (CIRAMM) is ready to take flight in a city known for its big blue sky. One of the centres in SAIT’s Applied Research and Innovation Services (ARIS) Hub, CIRAMM collaborates with industry partners to support innovative design, simulation, manufacturing and prototyping, materials and processing, material characterisation, and robotics and automation. This applied research team is fostering cutting-edge digital manufacturing technologies and developing novel materials solutions across strategic sectors, including aerospace, defence, construction, energy and manufacturing. As rapidly evolving technologies coincided with a growing need for stronger applied research capacity in manufacturing and materials science, CIRAMM was established in 2020 under Dr Hamid Rajani’s leadership. With more than 15 years of experience in industry and academia, he leads a 20-member research team, delivering a robust portfolio of applied …

Data centre infrastructure has a PFAS pollution problem

Data centre infrastructure has a PFAS pollution problem

Published by skeptic

Andie May Hardin, Communications Intern at the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), discusses the issue of data centres contributing to PFAS pollution. As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to rise across the US and globally, data centres have expanded and multiplied in tandem to accommodate AI’s massive workload demands. These data centres host tens of thousands of servers that run 24/7 in order to keep virtual networks, cloud storage, and computing in operation. Such servers require cooling systems, semiconductors, and fire suppressants – all sources of PFAS chemicals. Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS, form a group of more than 15,000 synthetic chemicals best known for their applications in non-stick, water- and grease-resistant, and firefighting products. The chemical structures that make them suitable for such uses, carbon-fluorine bonds, are among the strongest known chemical bonds and are therefore resistant to breaking down in the environment – a property that has earned PFAS the nickname ‘forever chemicals.’ These forever chemicals are present in our air, soil, drinking water, and overall food …

Fuelling defence goals with compound semiconductors

Fuelling defence goals with compound semiconductors

Published by skeptic

Dr Wyn Metedith, chair of CSconnected, discusses the UK government’s vision for compound semiconductors and how this fuels the goal of a sovereign defence capability. In September 2024, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) purchased a semiconductor foundry in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham. This unusual step was not a move to expand capacity, but to prevent collapse of a critical sovereign supply chain. The facility, Octric Semiconductors UK, was the only site in the UK capable of manufacturing gallium arsenide chips for military platforms, including fighter jet avionics. Its previous owners had been looking to sell or close it. The government intervened because losing it was deemed a national security risk. This highly reactive move was a reminder of how exposed the UK’s defence industrial base has become to the loss of critical semiconductor capability. The question the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), published in 2025, now has to answer is how Britain moves from reactive crisis management to proactive sovereign resilience. Goals of the Defence Industrial Strategy The DIS sets out an ambitious answer. Its vision …

X-ray breakthrough enables real-time monitoring of electronic chips

X-ray breakthrough enables real-time monitoring of electronic chips

Published by skeptic

A team of international researchers have developed a breakthrough way to observe what is happening inside electronic chips while they are operating. This allows electronic chips to be monitored without touching them, taking them apart, or switching them off. The new technique uses terahertz waves, a safe and non-ionising form of electromagnetic radiation, to detect tiny movements of electrical charge inside fully packaged semiconductor devices. This allows scientists and engineers to monitor electronic components as they function in the real world for the first time. Previous monitoring made electronic chips impractical Adelaide University Group Leader of the Terahertz Engineering Laboratory (TEL), Professor Withawat Withayachumnankul, explained that semiconductors underpin almost every modern technology, from smartphones and medical devices to vehicles, power grids and defence systems. “Yet once an electronic chip is sealed inside its protective packaging, it becomes extremely difficult to tell what is happening inside it,” he said. “Most existing inspection methods require physical electrical probes, exposed chips, or devices to be powered down – making them impractical in many scenarios.” How waves overcome these …

A Quantum Leap for the Turing Award

A Quantum Leap for the Turing Award

Published by skeptic

Today it’s widely acknowledged that the future of computing will involve the quantum realm. Companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, and a few well-funded startups are frantically building quantum computers and routinely claiming advances that seem to bring this exotic, world-changing technology within reach. In 1979 all of this was unthinkable. But that summer, two scientists met in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico, and their aquatic conversation led to a body of work that created quantum information theory. In a larger sense, their contributions helped bring computer science into the quantum age. Those water-logged scientists, Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard, are now the latest recipients of the ACM A.M. Turing Award, the Nobel Prize of the field. Until that 1979 meeting, there had been a disconnect between information science and physics. The latter field had experienced a disruption in the early 20th century when physicists discovered quantum mechanics, a deeper explanation of how the universe operated that superseded the classical physics of Issac Newton. Computer science, however, didn’t account for the quantum …

Humanity’s last exam, the test that modern AI still struggles to pass

Humanity’s last exam, the test that modern AI still struggles to pass

Published by Jenni Sidey

Artificial intelligence systems now breeze through many academic tests that once challenged both machines and people. That success created an unexpected problem. The benchmarks used to measure AI progress stopped being useful because top models were scoring too high. A massive international research effort set out to fix that. Nearly 1,000 experts from more than 50 countries collaborated to build a new assessment called Humanity’s Last Exam, or HLE, a 2,500-question test covering more than 100 subjects. The project, described in the journal Nature, aims to measure how far modern AI still falls short of expert human knowledge. “When AI systems start performing extremely well on human benchmarks, it’s tempting to think they’re approaching human-level understanding,” said Tung Nguyen, an instructional associate professor in computer science and engineering at Texas A&M University who helped develop the exam. “But HLE reminds us that intelligence isn’t just about pattern recognition — it’s about depth, context and specialized expertise.” The name sounds dramatic. The purpose is practical. Distribution of HLE questions across categories. HLE consists of 2,500 exam …

EU launches €75M sovereign digital infrastructure platform

EU launches €75M sovereign digital infrastructure platform

Published by skeptic

A new €75m European initiative aims to reshape the continent’s digital infrastructure by linking telecommunications networks, edge computing sites, cloud platforms, and artificial intelligence capabilities under a single federated framework. The project, known as EURO-3C, was introduced at Mobile World Congress 2026 and is supported by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe research programme. The consortium behind the initiative is led by Telefónica and includes more than 70 organisations across 13 countries, spanning telecom operators, cloud providers, research institutions, universities, and industrial companies. European Commission representatives and Telefónica executives presented the project as a strategic step toward building a more autonomous and resilient digital foundation for Europe’s economy. Speaking on the project, Renate Nikolay, Deputy Director General at the European Commission, said: “The European Commission strongly promotes secure digital communication infrastructures made in Europe, aiming to make the most of telco-edge-cloud convergence, with and for AI. “EURO-3C federates the efforts of a very large number of European players around a common goal: to build a secure and sovereign convergent communications landscape, for the benefit …