Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 February 2026
1140. Deputy Conor Sheehan asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the measures that have been taken to ensure the proposed €60 million investment in a supercomputer will provide researchers with access to the latest computing technologies compared with cloud-based services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15036/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Deputy notes, it is intended to proceed with the procurement of a new High Performance Computing system in the very near future. This project is being taken forward in conjunction with the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), a joint initiative between the EU, European countries and private partners to develop a World Class Supercomputing Ecosystem. Ireland is a founding member, represented by my Department on its Governing Board.
The Joint Undertaking has also pledged some €20m in support for this project.
Securing a national supercomputer will enable the development of domestic compute and data services to aid strategic and priority scientific needs in areas such as weather forecasting, climate modelling and various areas of research. It will also support Irish efforts in relation to other advanced computing technologies such as Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, which in turn benefit from close integration and in some cases co-location with a supercomputer.
This approach is in line with that of many other small advanced economies which Ireland would view as a comparator, for instance Finland and Luxembourg, which have already secured considerable centralised HPC resources. I am confident that the new system will be a significant boost for Ireland's research community and our overall compute capabilities.
The investment will, therefore, ensure that the Irish research and innovation system benefits from state of the art advanced computing resources.
