Atos supercomputers support global coronavirus research in Brazil

Belonging to Laboratório Nacional de Computação Científica and SENAI CIMATEC, the high-performance computers Santos Dumont and Ogbon, both produced by Atos, are being used on studies for the development of medicines and vaccines against COVID-19

 

Brazil, 27 April 2020

Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, announces that two of its supercomputers in Brazil are being used in research for the development of vaccines and medicine against the coronavirus. These are Santos Dumont, which belongs to the National Laboratory for Scientific Computing (LNCC), and Ogbon, at SENAI CIMATEC. The supercomputers are considered the largest in Brazil and in South America and are in the TOP 500 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. The initiative is led by the Chemistry Department at Stanford University, in the United States.

The aim is to contribute to the Folding@home project, coordinated by the University, which studies the evolution of the coronavirus in the human body, based on the interaction of viral proteins, which opens the way for the development of specific vaccines and drugs. Owing to their high performance and capacity, the two supercomputers are ideally situated to contribute to this type of research. They can be used for parallel processing, complex calculations and extensive and intensive tasks – processes that demand quadrillions of calculations per second.

Santos Dumont, installed at LNCC, in Rio de Janeiro, aims to have 60% of its capacity dedicated to the Folding@home project, which is 2 petaflops (equivalent to the computational capacity of 2 million laptops working together). Ogbon, located at the SENAI CIMATEC Supercomputing Center, in Salvador, aims to have 50% of its capacity devoted to research, which corresponds to 1 petaflops (or 1 million laptops).

“Our purpose is to connect people, technology and businesses to help improve the world in which we live. The use of our supercomputers in the battle against Covid-19’s advancement is exactly this. We are very proud to provide high-performance technology to support and develop research that can save millions of lives”, says Luis Casuscelli, Director of Big Data and Cybersecurity at Atos in South America. “Atos machines have already supported LNCC scientists to identify the source of the virus’s entry, and to identify that each different source has a different characteristic –which will support scientists and researchers create more effective vaccines.”

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About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with over 110,000 employees in 73 countries and annual revenue of over € 11 billion. European number one in Cloud, Cybersecurity and High-Performance Computing, the Group provides end-to-end Orchestrated Hybrid Cloud, Big Data, Business Applications and Digital Workplace solutions. The group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos Syntel, and Unify. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.

The purpose of Atos is to help design the future of the information technology space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education as well as multicultural and pluralistic approaches to research that contribute to scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the group enables its customers, employees and collaborators, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably and confidently in the information technology space.

Press contact:

Laura Fau | laura.fau@atos.net | +33 6 73 64 04 18 | @laurajanefau