Barcelona's MareNostrum 5 supercomputer gets €90 million boost
Spanish government plans to develop AI language models in Catalan and other co-official languages
The Spanish government will invest an additional €90 million to improve the capabilities of the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer.
The initiative is part of the executive's strategy to develop artificial intelligence in Spain.
The €90 million will be used to launch new "highly specialized" clusters to improve the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC).
The strategy also includes initiatives to create environmentally sustainable data centers through a new regulation that improves the planning of these infrastructures and simplifies administrative procedures.
There are also plans to create and expand a family of language models in Spanish, Catalan and other co-official languages, called Alia, with the first results expected by the end of the summer.
These actions aim to "significantly" increase the available computing capacity.
The commitment also includes dedicating 20% of MareNostrum 5's capacity to industry.
For more on the Barcelona Supercomputer and other cutting edge research happening in Catalonia, listen to our podcast from 2021 on the subject.