The foundation stone for the National High Performance Computing Centre of Switzerland, was laid at Cornaredo, a district of Lugano, earlier this week.
The new high-performance data centre is part of the national strategy launched in 2007, under which CHF172.5 million (€128.33 million) will be invested in total between 2009-2014.
The new building is necessary because the infrastructure at the current location in Manno lacks sufficient power and cooling capacity, and is not in a position to run Switzerland’s high-performance computers in the future.
The new centre, due to be completed in 2012, will be home to a petaflop computer, and will also be one of the world’s most energy-efficient high-performance data centres.
Receive our news bulletin each Tuesday & Thursday and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
