South African Researchers Gain Access to Lumi Supercomputer
The agreement allows access to the 379.7 petaflop Finnish system as South Africa builds its own domestic computing capacity.
Updated on Oct. 29, 2026 in Artificial Intelligence
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Finland has extended an offer to provide South African researchers with access to the Lumi supercomputer via European research partnerships. This collaboration aims to address South Africa's local computing capacity gap as the nation prepares to upgrade its own high-performance computing infrastructure.
Why it matters
The partnership provides South African scientists with access to world-class exascale-class computing resources, helping to offset current infrastructure limitations. This cooperation aligns with South Africa’s national goal to scale its research capabilities ahead of planned local upgrades.
Lumi, located in Kajaani, Finland, is an HPE Cray EX system capable of 379.7 petaflops sustained performance. It features a partition containing 11,912 GPUs and 120PB of storage capacity, consuming 7.1MW of power.
The players
Lumi
An HPE Cray EX supercomputer based in Finland that ranks among the fastest systems globally.
South African Centre for High Performance Computing
The national institution responsible for managing high-performance computing infrastructure in South Africa.
EuroHPC Joint Undertaking
A collaborative European entity that funds and manages high-performance computing systems across the continent.
The details
Lumi is a petascale-class supercomputer funded by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. It provides high-throughput processing power for data-intensive research tasks that require massively parallel GPU architecture. South African researchers gain access by partnering with existing European research groups to serve as the lead principal investigator on grant applications.
Timeline
1990s and 2000s: Finnish support helped establish the Meraka Institute.
2016: The Lengau supercomputer entered the top 500 global list.
2023: President Ramaphosa announced the R1-billion Presidential PhD Programme.
June 2026: Lumi ranked as the 11th fastest supercomputer globally.
March 2027: South Africa targets completion of its new 4 petaflop supercomputer.
The Tech Race
This partnership connects South African researchers to the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking ecosystem, bridging a significant gap in regional AI infrastructure. It effectively expands the reach of European supercomputing resources to accelerate development in nations currently lacking equivalent local scale.
South African researchers working on data-intensive AI models can now pursue high-performance computing time through European consortiums. This access serves as a critical bridge for academic projects while the nation works toward its planned hardware upgrades in 2027.
The takeaway
Access to international supercomputing capacity provides immediate relief for South African researchers who are constrained by limited local infrastructure. Interested parties should monitor the progress of the upcoming local 4 petaflop machine, which is slated for delivery in early 2027.
What happens next
South Africa is scheduled to complete the installation of its new 4 petaflop supercomputer to replace the current Lengau machine by March 2027.
Further reading
Learn more about the latest developments in Artificial Intelligence research and infrastructure.
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