EI collaborates with Icelandic data centre
The Earlham Institute (EI), UK, has announced its new partnership with Verne Global, an Iceland-based developer at the forefront of global data centre infrastructure design.
EI has selected Verne Global’s data centre campus in Iceland to investigate the efficiencies of distributing large-scale genomics and computational biology data analysis.
During this project, EI aim to 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 most reliable power grids producing 100% geothermal and hydroelectric renewable energy. Verne Global will enable the institute to save up to 70% in energy costs.
One of EI’s goals is to understand crop genomes so new varieties can be developed to secure food supply in the face of a growing population and environmental change.
Dr Tim Stitt, Head of Scientific Computing at EI said: “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.”
Jeff Monroe, CEO at Verne Global said: “As more organisations turn to high-performance computing to process large data sets, demand is growing for scalable and secure data centre solutions.
“Verne Global is able to deliver EI a forward-thinking path for growth with a solution that combines unparalleled costs savings with operational efficiencies to support their data-intensive research.”
Read an interview with Dr Tim Stitt in the forthcoming issue 12 of Horizon 2020 Projects: Portal, available in October.
