The University of Cambridge, Cambridge Research Computing and Dell Technologies have engineered a supercomputing infrastructure for Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Morocco. It allows scientists across Africa to work with massive data volumes, spearheading research innovation that can improve the quality of life and nutrition for millions. A further project is now being planned in South Africa.
UM6P presented the University of Cambridge with an opportunity to further its goals for democratising HPC. Dell Technologies facilitated a collaboration with UM6P’s African Supercomputing Center (ASCC) and Cambridge Research Computing. Together, the parties developed Toubkal, Africa’s first Top 100 supercomputer. Toubkal – named after the highest mountain in southwestern Morocco – comprises 1,300 Dell PowerEdge servers with Intel Xeon Scalable Processors and over 8,000TB of storage.
Today, the UM6P supercomputer serves researchers and data scientists who conduct important work in such areas as genomics, food security and agriculture, bolstered by AI and data analytics. They model satellite data to improve agricultural land management, meteorological data to make greater use of renewable energies, and the genomes of African nutritional plants that should be protected. These efforts could benefit millions of people across the continent and beyond.
