17.02.2020

HSG using Rechenzentrum Ostschweiz

St.Gallen/Gais AR - The University of St.Gallen (HSG) has taken up residence at Rechenzentrum Ostschweiz for the usage of two high-performance computers. New chairs in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science are the reason behind this.

The Rechenzentrum Ostschweiz (RZO), a computer and data center located in Gais in Eastern Switzerland, is a joint venture company established by the utility companies St.Gallisch-Appenzellische Kraftwerke AG (SAK) and St.Galler Stadtwerke (sgsw). According to a press release issued by SAK, RZO is the most energy-efficient computer and data center in Switzerland. Among the numerous new clients gained over the past few months is also the University of St.Gallen, which has taken up residence at the RZO for the usage of two high-performance computers.

HSG requires the relevant high-performance infrastructure for its two new chairs in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and Data Science. The energy-efficiency of the RZO, where all energy is derived from photovoltaic installations and hydropower, was one of the key reasons why a decision was made in favor of the RZO. "One of the decisive factors for hosting the high-performance computers and storage systems at the RZO was the expandability for other systems, which is not available in the HSG data center due to the high-power requirements of such systems", added Kurt Städler, Head of IT Infrastructure at HSG. In this context, HSG will even be using a third high-performance computer at the RZO from March onwards.

An additional advantage of the RZO is that waste heat is reused on site. “The virtualization of desktops, IaaS infrastructures from new cloud providers and of supercomputers for special applications will inevitably lead to the compression of processing power and therefore to a much higher heat build-up”, comments Christoph Baumgärtner, CEO of RZO, in the press release, before adding: “We already have some racks with performance in excess of 10 kW. With the HSG as a new client, we believe this again confirms that our services meet the highest expectations and most up-to-date requirements”.