By Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter

The nations new supercomputer, Taiwania 3 (), has been inaugurated to support research related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Science and Technology said on Tuesday, calling on academics and businesses to apply for free cloud services.

Taiwania 3 was developed by the National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) at a cost of about NT$400 million (US$14.4 million), the center said.

The center is one of eight institutes under the National Applied Research Laboratories, which is overseen by the ministry.

As the pandemic has severely affected peoples lives, the center asked itself what a supercomputer could do for the nation, NCHC Director-General Shepherd Shi () said in a video.

Shi, a former IBM engineer, was accompanied by former vice president and epidemiologist Chen Chien-jen (), and other experts in the video.

The center last year announced a special program allowing academics, researchers and businesses to apply for free cloud services amid the pandemic.

The program has supported many businesses to develop new medical applications, such as an electronic stethoscope developed by Heroic Faith Medical Science that can reduce the risk of virus transmission between medical personnel and patients, the center said.

Graphen Taiwan applied to use the centers artificial intelligence (AI) tools to chart the genetic evolution of different COVID-19 virus strains, it added.

The programs resources are upgraded with the commissioning of Taiwania 3, as well as assistance from Taiwan Web Service Corp, the center said, calling on those interested in using its resources to submit applications by July 31.

While there is no limits on projects, applicants can tender proposals related to medical applications, pandemic regulation, policy communications, stabilization of peoples livelihood, data mining and image recognition, the center said.

The centers Taiwania supercomputer series has three iterations: Taiwania, Taiwania 2 and Taiwania 3.

Taiwania 3 can perform 2.7 quadrillion floating-point operations per second (petaflops), higher than Taiwanias 1.7 petaflops, the center said.

While Taiwania 3 and Taiwania support high-performance computing, Taiwania 2 is better equipped for AI-related computing, with its computing performance reaching 9 petaflops, it said.

In the TOP500 List of global supercomputers announced in November last year, Taiwania 2 was ranked No. 28, followed by Taiwania 3 at No. 181 and Taiwania at No. 497.

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COVID-19: Supercomputer to support research on the pandemic - Taipei Times