At the forefront in Europe, expanded, enhanced and sustainable. The Green Data Center of the University of Pisa is doubling its capacity to support new challenges in scientific research and teaching, and to aid the digital transition of the territory. A leap into the future marked by a symbolic ribbon-cutting that officially inaugurated the new room of the Data Center in San Pietro a Grado on Tuesday, April 16, now providing the Pisa academic community with an additional 38 racks. Together with the 66 already present in the facility, this brings the total to 104. These figures make it the largest university Data Center in Italy, as well as the only one to have received the “A” classification from AgID.
“The University of Pisa aims for a leading position in the development of digitalization processes, necessary to face the new challenges in education, research and technology transfer. In this regard, the investment made in the University’s Green Data Center is strategic for us – commented the rector, Riccardo Zucchi – The expansion of this facility allows us to make a qualitative leap in competitive high-level projects and in frontier contexts, such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, or the subject of high performance computing in the context of the National Center funded in the PNRR.”
A view of the new room of the Green Data Center at the University of Pisa
“A university-level data center is a fundamental competitive tool for research in the fields of science and engineering – explained the Deputy Rector of the University of Pisa, Giuseppe Iannaccone – If well managed, it is the most efficient solution from both an operational and economic standpoint, while from an environmental perspective it is superior to a situation where resources are distributed among the various laboratories of the university.”
The expansion of the Green Data Center will significantly increase the computing power available for scientific research at UniPi, which currently already has around 700 nodes totaling approximately 30K computing cores and more than 100 GPUs of various generations. Moreover, the enhancement of the university’s Data Center will also have positive impacts on the local area. All of this with a strong focus on environmental sustainability.
“With the development of the University Green Data Center, we also enhance our ability to support the digitalization processes, not only of the university but also of the surrounding area, consolidating what is the ‘UniPi model’ of digital transition, in which our university offers its infrastructure and strong expertise in the field of ICT to the territory,” stated the rector’s delegate for digital transition, Giuseppe Anastasi. “The strengthening of the Data Center can indeed guarantee new digital services that can benefit not only the academic community but also the territory, thus laying the foundations for increasingly sustainable, widespread, inclusive, effective, and participatory development.”
Aerial view of the Green Data Center of the University of Pisa
“Recent studies show how data centers contribute to the growth of the region and its GDP (the number grew by 22% in 2022 alone) – stated the president of the University Computing System, Antonio Cisternino – It is important that these infrastructures are present and help not only the teaching and research of the University but also to develop the territory through the availability of innovative infrastructures and collaborations. It should also be noted that data centers are becoming the engines of artificial intelligence and have also been dubbed AI Factories.”
“The main objective of the expansion project of the Green Data Center – explained the Data Center CTO, Maurizio Davini – was to integrate new technological elements without distorting the original project, designed to have the least environmental impact possible. Thanks to the new solutions adopted, the Green Data Center is now able to support next-generation High-performance computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence infrastructures for the coming years, limiting energy consumption.”
From left: Antonio Cisternino, President of the University Information System; Giuseppe Anastasi, Delegate for Digital Transition; Gabriella Porcaro, Councillor for Simplification and Technologies of the Public Administration; Riccardo Zucchi, Rector of the University of Pisa; Maurizio Davini, CTO of Green Data Center; Alessandra Nardini, Regional Councillor for University and Research; Stefano Suin, Director of Digital Infrastructure at UniPi
To achieve this, innovative liquid cooling solutions have been appropriately chosen, such as Liebert® XDU by Vertiv or the HyperCool solution by Zutacore, which allow the implementation of liquid cooling even in existing Data Centers with air cooling. This has made it possible to adopt next-generation computing systems like Lenovo Neptune, which guarantees a reduction of up to 40% in energy consumption without sacrificing performance. Moreover, the University of Pisa has been among the first in Europe to adopt these technological solutions, making its Green Data Center a state-of-the-art facility also from the perspective of environmental sustainability.
Finally enhanced, the high-speed internal and external connectivity and high reliability of the structure. “Thanks to the activation of a second connection node to the new generation ultra-broadband national network (GARR-T), dedicated to the education and research community, the scientific computing power of our University’s Green Data Center has increased immensely – explains Stefano Suin, director of the Digital Infrastructure Department of the University of Pisa – Today, in fact, this facility can rely on an internal connectivity of 200 Gbit/sec and external connectivity of 100 Gbit/sec, which allows it to fully exploit its potential in terms of access to High Performance Computing systems and Artificial Intelligence, and to deliver according to the needs of each project; without forgetting the necessary attention to data protection and research results.”