Since January 2016 the LEC has been using the supercomputer Bull HPC-Clutter. Atos, the internationally leading digital service provider, produced the computer. According to Andreas Wimmer, CEO and Scientific Director of the LEC, this computer accelerates the calculation process by up to 80 percent and is 300 times faster. And because research requires a continuous increase in variants, the computing time is a central topic at the Large Engines Competence Center. With the highly efficient supercomputer the simulation results required for the LEC’s research are available significantly faster than before. Andreas Kober, Vice President and Head of Big Data and Security at Atos Austria, confirms this. This makes it possible to incorporate more and additional calculation parameters into the simulations. Furthermore, the supercomputers developed by Atos are considered the fast high performance systems with the largest storage capacity worldwide. This makes Atos an extremely valuable partner for the LEC.

The Large Engines Competence Center specializes in increasing engine efficiency and reducing emissions. A prime example is GE Jenbacher’s gas engine whose efficiency has been raised to 48,7 percent, and international peak value. An efficiency increase of one percent in a 10MW engine signifies an annual decrease of 750 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. However this is not possible with a conventional PC, so the LEC had to be equipped with the supercomputer. Another reason is the EU decision to lower Carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent by 2030.

The acquisition of the supercomputer earned a great reaction in the media. ORF STEIERMARK broadcast a report about it in their format “Steiermark heute” on the 21st of June 2016. The newspaper Kleine Zeitung published an article on the 22nd of June. The economic newspaper Steirische Wirtschaft and the specialist online paper Computerpartner both published articles on the 30th of June, the latter focussed on the technical details of the computer. On the 4th of Juli the Profil published an article which focussed on the environmental friendliness of the LEC.

Large engines emit a large amount of emissions, therefore innovative concepts to reduce exhaust gas emissions in this area are highly demanded. At the LEC we deal with this subject extensively. Andreas Wimmer, CEO and Scientific Director of the LEC Ltd.