King Frederik will inaugurate one of the world's most powerful supercomputers and a brand new center for artificial intelligence in Denmark on Wednesday. The inauguration will take place in the Vilhelm Lauritzen Terminal at Copenhagen Airport.
- This step can almost feel like traveling back in time, says King Frederik in a speech.
The supercomputer named "Gefion" will be used, among other things, for the development of new medicines, diagnosing diseases and finding effective solutions in the green transition.
- Today we celebrate everything we now have access to. It is groundbreaking for our research, and Gefion can provide better opportunities to be equipped for tomorrow's challenges, says the king.
The exact location is secret for security reasons, the Novo Nordisk Foundation informs Ritzau.
The supercomputer is the result of a partnership between the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Danish Export and Investment Fund (EIFO) and the American chip giant Nvidia. The computer gets its power from Nvidia's so-called microchips. It is a small piece of material that contains an electronic circuit in microscopic size. With the electronic circuits, the microchip can store information and function as the brain of the computer.
Can solve more complex problems than today's computers
King Frederik is in the company of Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, Minister of Business and Industry Morten Bødskov (S) and CEO of Novo Nordisk Lars Fruergaard at the launch, among others. The plan is for Danish researchers from the country's universities and companies to have access to use the computer.
- It can work on solutions to problems that are so complex that today's computers do not stand a chance.
This was stated by the CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, when the plans for the supercomputer were announced back in March.
The trick will be to get researchers, doctors and companies to become so interested in the computer that they will come running with problems that they have not been able to solve so far, said the director.
- We cannot send Danish data out of the kingdom, so this enables Danish researchers to work with Danish data on Danish soil, says Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen.
Revenues are reinvested
The unique thing about the supercomputer is that it can review oceans of data at once. A regular computer must solve one problem at a time before moving on to the next, the director explained.
The supercomputer looks like something you might have seen in a movie, where a lot of so-called racks - a type of cabinet for hardware - are connected together. The supercomputer will run on 100 percent renewable energy.
Pictures show CEO of chip giant Nvidia Jensen Huang, newly appointed CEO of the new Danish Centre for AI Innovation Nadia Carlsten and King Frederik carrying a giant power plug on stage at the inauguration. It is not clear whether it is a real power plug for the supercomputer.
The Novo Nordisk Foundation has allocated around 600 million DKK to the centre, with the Danish Export and Investment Fund (Eifo) contributing around 100 million.
The foundation has established a limited liability company that will own and operate the supercomputer. All income will be reinvested in the initiative, the foundation wrote at the launch. Eifo is a minority owner with ownership of over 15 percent of the shares.
/ritzau/
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