The first award, Best Sustainability Innovation in HPC (Editors’ Choice Award) was received at the annual HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards. The award was presented at the SC21 conference in St. Louis, MO, USA in mid-November.
– In the world of ever-accelerating climate change we as the science community need to provide the insight and innovation to tackle the crisis. LUMI is designed for zero carbon emissions with 100% hydroelectric power and excess heat reuse in district heating. We thank HPCwire for this recognition, and challenge our sister centers to follow the path, says Pekka Manninen, Director of LUMI Leadership Computing Facility.
The second award was presented at the global DCD Awards ceremony in London on 8 December. This time LUMI was awarded the Data Center Design Innovation Award in collaboration with Granlund and Synopsis Architects. This year DCD Awards received more entries than ever before: hundreds of entries were submitted from 35 countries across 6 continents. The entries were independently judged by a team of renowned experts.
DCD Awards stated the following about the winner of the Data Center Design Innovation Award:
– This award recognizes facilities that have pushed the boundaries in terms of design and construction to deliver a building which overcame a unique challenge and met (or exceeded) the original project objectives. The design and construction of the CSC ‘state of the art’ supercomputer (LUMI) illustrates how a project needs to factor in modifications mid-project. The HPC hardware and its specifications were only available midway through the design process meaning design and construction were conducted side by side. The resulting data center has a negative CO2 footprint as it is powered by renewables and its waste heat is used to heat local buildings.
– Great design primarily serves a function but also offers magical experiences. LUMI is not just cool and one of the most eco-efficient data centers in the world but also looks very cool. LUMI means snow in Finnish and we wanted to create something inspiring based on our unique location. It is such an honor to receive this award and we want to thank DCD Awards for this award. We also want to thank our collaborators Granlund and Synopsis Architects, not forgetting the LUMI consortium and EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and everyone else involved – without you this wouldn’t have become reality and we can all be proud of this achievement, said Jukka-Pekka Partanen, Director of the Kajaani Data Center Program at CSC – IT Center for Science, the hosting site of the LUMI supercomputer.