The first stage of Sirius Project, the new synchrotron light source of the Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Energia e Materiais - CNPEM (National Center for Research in Energy and Materials), was held in Campinas (State of São Paulo) last Wednesday (14). The event was attended by the President of the Republic, Michel Temer, and the Minister of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications, Gilberto Kassab.

Started in 2012, Sirius is considered the largest project in Brazilian Science as it is a state-of-the-art research infrastructure, strategic for cutting-edge scientific research and for finding solutions to global problems in areas such as health, agriculture, energy and environment. It will be an open laboratory in which the scientific and industrial communities will have access to research facilities.

Being a great scientific equipment, Sirius brings challenges in processing and storing large volumes of data. In order to access the Santos Dumont supercomputer, which is located in the Laboratório Nacional de Computação Científica  - LNCC (National Laboratory of Scientific Computation) in Petrópolis (State of Rio de Janeiro), the Laboratório Nacional de Luz Síncrotron -  LNLS (National Synchrotron Light Laboratory) asked RNP (Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa – National Education and Research Network) to use the academic network and the service Processamento de Alto Desempenho Expresso  - PADEX (Express High Performance Processing).

The service supports e-Science activities that require advanced computational resources and handling large volumes of data in a short time to ensure the success of scientific experiments. “With Sirius, Brazilian cyberinfrastructure has a valuable domestic laboratory, which is born interconnected to all groups, laboratories and researchers in Brazil and abroad”, said our CEO, Nelson Simões.

Budgeted at BRL 1.8 billion, Sirius Project is funded by the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications (MCTIC). Designed by Brazilians, Sirius had about 85% of its resources invested in Brazil, whether in its internal teams or in partnership with domestic companies.

Source: CNPEM, with information from RNP.