Mexico will build the 314 petaflop Coatlicue supercomputer, seven times more powerful than Latin America’s current leader, for public and scientific applications
MEXICO CITY: Mexico has announced plans to construct Latin America’s most powerful supercomputer with seven times the processing capacity of the region’s current leader.
Named Coatlicue after an Aztec goddess representing power and life, the supercomputer will deliver 314 petaflops of processing power.
President Claudia Sheinbaum stated “We want it to be a public supercomputer, a supercomputer for the people” during the project announcement.
The initiative comes amid a global race to develop increasingly powerful computers that can work alongside artificial intelligence systems.
According to industry rankings, the United States currently leads the supercomputing field with Europe and Japan also featuring in the top 10.
A petaflop represents 1,000 trillion calculations per second, equivalent to 10 to the power of 15 operations.
Brazil’s privately-owned Pegaso currently ranks as Latin America’s most powerful computer with 42 petaflops capacity.
Construction will begin in January with completion expected within 24 months at a total cost of RM1.4 billion.
Jose Merino, director of Mexico’s Digital Transformation Agency, outlined the supercomputer’s primary applications.
It will address public challenges requiring high computing capacity including climate prediction and agricultural planning.
The system will also support water management, energy projects, and scientific research initiatives.
Additional uses will include entrepreneurial project support and various other computational needs.
Mexico’s Coatlicue won’t compete with the world’s most powerful exascale computers led by El Capitan.
The United States’ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory operates El Capitan with 1.809 exaflops capacity.
An exaflop represents quintillions of calculations per second, specifically 10 to the power of 18 operations.
Europe recently unveiled Jupiter, housed in western Germany, with similar exascale computing capabilities.
Jupiter’s processing power equals approximately one million smartphones working simultaneously. – AFP
