They are among the 500 most powerful computers in the world and are available to researchers at all universities in Baden-Württemberg. NEMO, the supercomputer in Freiburg, consists of 750 computing nodes, each of which has 20 cores. This makes NEMO up to 15,000 times faster than conventional home computers at maximum computing power. BinAC in Tübingen has 296 computing nodes with 28 cores each and four computing nodes with 40 cores each. In addition, BinAC's performance is boosted by a total of 120 graphics cards. Almost 300,000 cores enable BinAC to carry out numerous complex computing operations in parallel.

The state of Baden-Württemberg and the German Research Foundation (DFG ) have invested a total of more than six million euros in the high-performance computers at the two sites. The opening of the two high-performance computers marks the completion of the first phase of the state's "Baden-Württemberg High Performance Computing" (bwHPC) strategy.

Until now, it was common practice for each computer center to supply all scientific disciplines at its own university with computing power. In future, Baden Württemberg will have supercomputers at several locations instead. They are tailored precisely to the requirements of selected disciplines and provide services for all state universities: Freiburg for microsystems technology, neurosciences and elementary particle physics, Tübingen for bioinformatics and astrophysics.

Multiple levels for demanding projects.

Two high-performance computers had already gone into operation in 2015: at the Universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg for Economics and Social Sciences and Molecular Life Sciences and at the University of Ulm for Theoretical Chemistry. Each location thus supplies several hundred researchers from the respective disciplines throughout Baden-Württemberg. It is possible to use either the entire high-performance computer for particularly complex projects or parts of it for several smaller tasks. The state university network has also created the conditions for researchers to be able to access the central infrastructure from their workstation at their university: They upload their data to the server and retrieve the results after the supercomputer has processed the data.

High-performance computers are becoming increasingly important for science. On the one hand, they enable big data - the management and analysis of large amounts of data, which gives rise to new research questions. On the other hand, computer simulations can replace expensive experiments.

The bwHPC state strategy is establishing a multi-level system: The high-performance computers in Freiburg, Tübingen, Mannheim, Heidelberg and Ulm are designed to provide young scientists with quick and easy access and advice from experts in the respective computer centers - for doctoral theses, for example.

In the neurosciences, the Freiburg supercomputer will make it possible in future to simulate networks of nerve cells located in an area of the human brain measuring up to one cubic millimeter. This is sufficient for many research questions; however, experienced researchers whose projects are so demanding that they require even higher capacities can turn to other locations as required: the high-performance research computer in Karlsruhe in the second stage, the high-performance computing center in Stuttgart in the third stage.