Dropped to 20th place
‘Dutch supercomputers too slow’
IBM Blue Gene supercomputer. Photo: Wiki Commons
Over the past ten years, the computing power of Dutch supercomputers and digital networks has lagged far behind that of other countries. The Netherlands has dropped from 7th to 20th place in a European supercomputing ranking.
Researchers who increasingly work with large data sets are therefore forced to turn to countries such as Finland and France, according to an inventory by NWO, the research funder, and Surf, the ICT cooperative for Dutch education and research.
"Without a digital foundation, our knowledge economy is in jeopardy," they write. "Digital infrastructures are often invisible, but absolutely indispensable."
NWO and Surf have calculated that the Netherlands needs to invest an additional 165 million euros annually in national and local computing facilities, data storage and network infrastructure, digital security and connectivity with European computing and AI facilities, among other things.
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