The inauguration of the ESA High Performance Computing environment (ESA Space HPC) took place on March 12, 2025 in ESRIN, Frascati (Rome), Italy and was the occasion to showcase the capabilities and strategic importance of the new in-house Space HPC to ESA internal and external stakeholders.
This significant development marks a pivotal moment in ESA commitment to accelerating innovation within the Space Industry.
The ESA Space HPC is a state-of-the-art supercomputing platform created to meet the growing computational needs of the European space industry and to serve as a technology demonstrator to ease adoption of National HPCs and EuroHPCs.
By utilising cutting-edge technologies, Space HPC delivers significant computing power with a sustainable and energy-efficient approach, empowering researchers, startups, and industry players to push the boundaries of innovation.
The ESA Space HPC is in fact designed to serve the entire ecosystem of the space industry. From start-ups to established enterprises and academic institutions, the platform provides the tools and resources needed to achieve breakthrough results. It is tailored to meet the specific challenges of space research, development, and commercialisation, being an advanced yet accessible infrastructure that bridges the gap between groundbreaking ideas and real-world applications.
Its critical and flexible infrastructure, at the forefront of ESA Digital Transformation, is designed to support ESA’s scientific research and technological development activities, as well as to provide access to small and medium size enterprises.
During the inauguration, a panel of top experts from ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes, Science and Operations Directorates presented their project use cases leveraging the Space HPC capabilities in the domain of Hydrology, Disaster Management, Land Management and Food Security, Glacier Ice loss and Impact, Mars Elevation Mapping and Space Weather Modelling, to name but a few.
All shared interesting testimonials, reporting for example: significant speed-ups in calculations that enhanced efficiency and broadened the scope of their projects, quick crisis insights delivery and situational awareness within minutes rather than hours, capability to provide interactive user interfaces on large data sets, acceleration of forecast simulations, increased model precision and resolution, and more.
The ESA Space HPC is currently in its pilot phase, running test use cases through April. Broader access is planned thereafter, in a ramp-up mode to ensure optimal performance and user experience. More information and the form through which request for services are available on its official webpage.
