Earlham Institute looks to Iceland for Green HPC

The Earlham Institute (EI) has announced its new partnership with Verne Global, selecting the developer’s data centre campus in Keflavik Iceland to investigate the efficiencies of distributing large-scale genomics and computational biology data analysis. The research institute is renowned for its contribution to the analysis and data-sharing of the highly complex wheat genome that is critical to securing future global food supplies. The high-throughput DNA sequencing instruments generate large amounts of data requiring significant computational effort making the storage, processing, analysis and sharing of the data extremely challenging.

In this project, a first for a UK academic institution, EI – formerly The Genome Analysis Centre -will examine the benefits of migrating a strategic collaborative bioinformatics analysis platform to Iceland via existing academic network providers JANET and NORDUnet.

Through Verne Global, EI will have access to one of the world’s most reliable power grids producing 100% geothermal and hydroelectric renewable energy, that has the potential to save the Institute up to 70% in energy costs (based on 14p to 4p KWH rate) and with no additional power for cooling required.

“Modern bioinformatics is driven by the generation of ever increasing volumes of genomic data requiring large and collaborative computing resources to help process it quickly and at scale. At EI, we have some of the largest computational platforms for the Life Sciences in Europe and the demand for our computing capability is only increasing, putting pressure on the capacity and operational costs of our existing data centres,” said Dr Tim Stitt Head of Scientific Computing at EI.

“We are, therefore, very excited to be partnering with Verne Global in Iceland, who not only can supply medium and high power computing density at significantly lower energy costs but who can also deliver excellent global network communications and data centre security.

“We are planning to publish a paper on our study, and I hope the impact of our collaboration with Verne Global will be the catalyst for many more academic institutions in the UK and Europe to consider migrating their computing infrastructures to Iceland,” Dr Stitt added.