BSC-CNS Newsletter July 2024

Spanish government strengthens AI capabilities of MareNostrum 5

This upgrade, part of the Spanish government's AI Strategy, will increase MareNostrum 5's processing capacity by almost 50%, over 450 petaflops. Another of the objectives of the strategy is the creation of a plan for language models in Spanish and co-official languages, ALIA, that are open and transparent, avoiding bias and improving the quality of applications. BSC will be the technical coordinator of the Language Model Plan.

Generative AI debated by experts from around the world in Barcelona

BSC hosted the European kick-off of the International Trillion Parameter Consortium, that brought together industry leaders, researchers, and practitioners to discuss the transformative potential of Generative AI in scientific and engineering applications. The event was an occasion to explore how Generative AI is reshaping science and engineering, and to accelerate its adoption across various fields.

Clinical validation of radiation-free breast cancer diagnostic technique at Vall d'Hebron Hospital

The European QUSTom project, under the coordination of BSC, has carried out a clinical validation with patients for the early detection of breast cancer at the Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron. This new technique could revolutionise the diagnosis of this type of tumour, as it is completely harmless for women and offers a much more complete image from a functional and multiparametric point of view.

Most Surface Ozone Contributing to Premature Mortality in European Countries Is Imported

Among all deaths attributable to O3 across 35 European countries, more than 60% stem from O3 transport originating beyond Europe's borders. A study led both by BSC and ISGlobal has quantified for the first time the impact of imported (non-national) O3 on mortality. This study, published in the cover of Nature Medicine, have important implications for air quality and public health policies in the continent and within the European Union.

BSC, a key player in the development of a digital twin to simulate future impacts of climate change on Earth

Destination Earth, a flagship initiative of the European Commission, completes its first phase intending to develop highly accurate digital twins of the Earth system to support responding and adapting to the environmental challenges posed by climate change. The high-resolution simulations of these future scenarios are only possible thanks to the computing power of the first pre-exascale supercomputers in Europe, such as MareNostrum 5 or LUMI.

BSC contributes to the WMO’s new climate predictions report for the next decade

The forecasts indicate that it is very likely (more than 80% probability) that at least one year in the period 2024-2028 will exceed the warmest year on record, 2023, with the possibility of one exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial values. BSC is one of the four Global Producing Centres among the 15 institutions that contributed to the Lead Centre for Annual-to-Decadal Climate Predictions, providing the basis for the report.

The 2024 Europe Report of the Lancet Countdown, led by BSC, warns urgent action is needed to protect health from climate change

Published in The Lancet Public Health, the report highlights the negative impacts of climate change on human health, the delayed action of European countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and the missed opportunities to protect and improve health with climate action.

The Seasonal Hurricane Predictions platform for an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season

This year's hurricane season in the Atlantic is expected to be hyperactive, potentially record-breaking. The forecasts submitted to the Seasonal Hurricane Predictions platform call for an average of 11 hurricanes for this season. This is the highest number recorded for April forecasts since the BSC platform went live in 2016. The Seasonal Hurricane Predictions platform gathers and displays data from nearly 30 different centres specialising in seasonal hurricane forecasting worldwide

New simulator to enhance aircraft design for greater efficiency and safety

The software developed will serve as the benchmark simulator for aerodynamic applications within Airbus group and is expected to have a significant impact on the European aviation market. This research has been developed in the framework of the NextSim project, coordinated by BSC, and has concluded after 3 years of work, presenting cutting-edge solutions for the aviation market.

Strategic network for digital humanities in Catalonia

BSC hosts the launch of CLARIAH-CAT, a project which aims to promote the application of technology and computing in the field of art and social sciences and to facilitate researchers' access to European digital infrastructures such as DARIAH, CLARIN and SSHOC. More than 50 researchers from all over Catalonia, as well as representatives of the public administration, participated in the launch of the initiative.

New features for OmpSs-2 for developing and running parallel applications on high-performance systems

The 2024.05 release of the OmpSs-2 programming model introduces new features such as the Directory/Cache for CUDA devices in Nanos6, alongside multiple enhancements to the nOS-V tasking library, and overall performance and bug fixes. Additionally, the enhanced LLVM/OpenMP runtime now supports OpenMP free-agents and detailed instrumentation through ovni. This release discontinues support for the Mercurium compiler.

BSC paves the way with GSMA, VEON, and Beeline for the AI development in non-global languages

BSC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the GSMA and the telephone operators VEON and Beeline Kazakhstan for the development of open-source artificial intelligence tools through the Aina project, funded by the Government of Government of Catalonia. The parties will explore collaboration opportunities focusing on the development of mechanisms and documentation on language models and AI systems for under-resourced languages.

The Maria CHOIR installation wins the S+T+ARTS Honorary Mention

The artist Maria Arnal won the S+T+ARTS Honorary Mention award for the installation Maria CHOIR, developed in collaboration with BSC researchers. It is an immersive musical installation that invites participants to explore the limits of singing and listening through real-time interaction with an AI.This installation was included in the exhibition "AI: Artificial Intelligence", that was on display at CCCB co-produced by BSC.

BSC at Sónar+D : uncovering the hidden dynamics of the planet's largest marine ecosystem

The art installation ‘Liquid Strata’, by BSC researcher Joan Llort and digital, showed in the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion the characteristics of a twilight zone of the ocean with a crucial impact on climate change. Maria Arnal and other artists presented their artist-in-residence projects at BSC as part of the European AIR initiative of S+T+ARTS. BSC Visualization team presented an experiment to study the mobility profile of attendees, as part of the vCity project.

Minister Carlos Cuerpo visits BSC

The Spanish Minister of Economy, Trade and Enterprise, Carlos Cuerpo, visited the facilities of BSC. During the meeting, the Minister was able to learn more about the research being carried out at BSC as well as the challenges for the future. He also showed special interest in the projects funded by the NextGenerationEU Recovery Fund, such as the MareNostrum 5, the Zettascale laboratory, the large Spanish language model and the QuantumSpain initiative.