Today, the President of the Regional Government, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, visited the Supercomputing Centre of Castilla y León, SCAYLE, for the commissioning of the Caléndula supercomputer, which will increase its computing power tenfold and contribute to boosting scientific research and the development of Artificial Intelligence. To achieve these objectives, the Regional Government has made an investment of 20 million euros in SCAYLE, the largest ever in this infrastructure.
Alfonso Fernández Mañueco inaugura Caléndula en el Centro de Supercomputación de Castilla y León (SCAYLE). Fuente: Scayle
The capacity of Caléndula has increased to 7000 Teraflops, i.e. it has the capacity to perform 7000 billion operations per second or to read 12,000 books the length of Don Quixote in a single second. In this way, it is positioned as the second most powerful supercomputer in the country, only behind the MareNostrum at the BSC National Supercomputing Centre, and it is being applied across diverse fields to improve the lives of people, the competitiveness of companies and the efficiency of the administration.
CALÉNDULA will allow thousands of scientific experiments to be carried out simultaneously through simulations to accelerate, for example, the discovery of new drugs; moreover, in the field of healthcare, it will improve early detection, diagnostic precision and the effectiveness of therapies.
On the other hand, it will multiply the potential of companies, which will be reflected in the improvement of the design of their prototypes and the optimisation of logistics, energy and industrial processes.
The field will also benefit from the computing power offered by Calendula, as it will improve the prediction of atmospheric phenomena and the spread of fires, the control of plant diseases and the selection of livestock.
Fernández Mañueco affirmed that Caléndula will revolutionise the progress of the Community and will strengthen it as a technological and modern reference in Spain and Europe.
Alfonso Fernández Mañueco inaugura Caléndula en el Centro de Supercomputación de Castilla y León (SCAYLE). Fuente: Scayle
- New headquarters for the SCAYLE Foundation
At the same time, the Castilla y León Regional Government is promoting the new headquarters of the SCAYLE Foundation in León, where construction work is progressing and it is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
The building will have a floor area of 1,500 square metres, and a functional layout comprising multiple spaces, such as training rooms, meeting rooms, offices, workstations, and multipurpose areas.
Fernández Mañueco stressed that the regional government is working to place Castilla y León among the leading regions in Spain in terms of technological effort. Along these lines, among other examples, it has managed to increase data storage capacity in the region tenfold in order to provide better virtual storage services and increase cybersecurity.
Likewise, the RedCAYLE infrastructure has been renewed, multiplying the link speed to 100 Gbps (gigabits per second), improving connectivity for universities, schools and research centres.
Finally, the President of the Junta has indicated that Castilla y León is going to take advantage of all the benefits of the combination of supercomputing and artificial intelligence with a new Supercomputing Strategy, with the aim of further strengthening the prominent position of the Community in the automotive, logistics, chemical, pharmaceutical, cybersecurity, aeronautics, forestry, agri-food and renewable energy sectors; in the management of heritage and in the provision of public services.