This machine, five times more powerful than the previous one, should enable Météo France to improve its forecasting capacity.

The ultimate goal is to save precious minutes in the event of weather disasters, such as storms or torrential rains, to limit the damage.

The tool is supposed to save precious minutes in weather alerts: Météo France has just acquired a new supercomputer five times more powerful than the previous one.

This supercomputer is a giant computer that will make it possible to predict weather disasters such as storms, torrential rains or ice on the roads earlier.  

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But what does it look like?

"In technical terms, that represents the equivalent of 50,000 individual computers that we would make work together", describes Alain Béraud, the project manager.

"Physically, it is made up of three rows of calculation cabinets equipped with small blue diodes, in a dedicated room that has been completely renovated for the installation of this machine."

A more powerful machine, which therefore consumes more 

"It's a fairly heavy machine, more than 2 tonnes per square meter, which is cooled by water, so we have cooling circuits that run inside the computing processors, to avoid dissipating the heat produced in the air and be as efficient as possible in terms of energy cost and electricity consumption associated with the operation of this machine, "he said. 

In addition, the water used to cool this supercomputer comes out at 46 degrees and is used to heat certain Météo France buildings.

Downside: this new machine is more powerful, therefore consumes more energy. 

Objective: to gain a few hours of anticipation

The software developed by the researchers should make it possible to identify earlier bad weather that requires evacuation or a change in the trajectory of an aircraft, such as a thick fog that would fall on an airport, or a wave of ice that will block thousands motorists on the roads.

Objective: to gain a few hours.

"We hope to gain one to two hours in anticipation", specifies François Lalaurette, director of operations for the forecast of Météo France.

"Today, we give vigilance up to 24 hours in advance and we set ourselves the limit of trying to never have less than three hours. The objective is to try to increase this anticipation, and to pass at four o'clock, five o'clock ... If we arrived at 6 o'clock, that would be a lot. "

55 million euros 

The time to efficiently deploy help by successfully predicting the intensity of a storm, at least four to six hours in advance, to give yourself time to evacuate as many homes as possible. 

In total, the new machine costs 55 million euros.

To justify this investment, an independent evaluation was made.

Conclusion: for one euro invested in the supercomputer, the company benefits from it in the order of 12 euros in terms of damage avoided, human lives saved, etc.

The software for this supercomputer is being rolled out gradually and should be running at full capacity in early 2022.