EN

Wednesday, April 9, at the ENEA Research Centre in Portici (Naples), the CRESCO 8 high-performance supercomputer will be inaugurated. Designed to support national scientific research with advanced computing capabilities, CRESCO 8 represents a significant step forward in computational power.

The event will feature a workshop focusing on the strategic role of High Performance Computing (HPC) in technological innovation. Among the participants in the institutional session will be Massimo Bernaschi, Vice President of GARR, alongside representatives from ENEA, CNR, CINECA, INFN, as well as local and ministerial authorities.

CRESCO 8, the latest evolution of the CRESCO supercomputer family, has been acquired through funding from the European Next Generation EU programme. Among its key applications, it will support the PNRR Divertor Tokamak Test Facility Upgrade (DTT-U) project, dedicated to plasma physics simulations and experimental data management. This system will enhance research in energy, sustainability, and digital transformation, strengthen national scientific infrastructures, and consolidate ENEA’s role in technological innovation, working in collaboration with industry and international partners.

GARR has always interconnected the various versions of CRESCO, and with the new GARR-T network, it has reinforced the backbone links of the PoP hosted in Portici, now benefiting from a dual 100 Gbps connection. This upgrade, funded by the PNRR as part of the ICSC project, has focused on Southern Italy, increasing the total backbone capacity in the Campania region to 4.4 Tbps.

The event is open to the public, with free participation upon registration: https://www.eventi.enea.it/tutti-gli-eventi-enea/inaugurazione-del-supercalcolatore-cresco-8.html

Go to website event

On 2 April, Lise Fuhr, CEO of GÉANT, visited GARR as part of a series of introductory meetings with national research networks (NRENs) across Europe. These meetings were initiated by the new head of the organisation at the start of her tenure in November 2024.
The visit provided GARR with the opportunity to present an update on its organisation, infrastructure, and user community, highlighting its specific features and needs. The meeting was a key opportunity to strengthen cooperation among research networks and develop common solutions to address future challenges in Europe.

GÉANT, the European backbone connecting national research and education networks, faces the challenge of harmonising the diversity of national networks, which operate in different geopolitical contexts and feature highly varied governance models, management structures, user communities, and service offerings. GÉANT’s core mission is to interconnect these networks, bridging their differences to create a research support infrastructure that meets the needs of all. In this context, mediation and interaction play a crucial role in integrating the various "identities" within this community. GÉANT facilitates dialogue among networks, working to unify different perspectives and ensure increasingly effective and productive cooperation.

As one of GÉANT’s founding and active supporting members, GARR collaborates to provide high-capacity connectivity across Europe and beyond. Recently, GARR upgraded its connection to the European backbone, increasing its total capacity to 600 Gbps, responding to the growing data exchange demands of international collaborations. This was particularly evident during the LHC Data Challenge, where data transfer peaks exceeded 200 Gbps.

What is GÉANT?
GÉANT is Europe’s ultra-high-capacity backbone network, connecting research and education networks across the continent with multiple 100 Gbps links and advanced services for major research infrastructures. The network interconnects over 50 million users in approximately 10,000 scientific, educational, and cultural institutions across Europe, transferring more than 7 petabytes of data daily. With a scalable capacity of up to 8 Tbps, GÉANT supports the evolving needs of the scientific and education communities.

GÉANT is co-funded by the European Commission and research and education networks across Europe, including GARR. These networks manage and guide the GÉANT organisation. Its infrastructure and services continuously evolve thanks to research carried out within dedicated projects. For over 20 years, GÉANT and Europe’s research networks have been at the forefront of telecommunications technologies, ensuring ongoing support for the ever-changing needs of research and education users across Europe. GÉANT is in turn globally interconnected with the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia and, thanks to dedicated projects, is able to reach even the most remote areas of the planet to connect unique research infrastructures and make them available to scholars from anywhere in the world.

The new edition of the Rome Science Festival has been unveiled, marking its 20th anniversary this year. From 8 to 13 April, at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, research will take centre stage under the theme Bodies. This edition will explore human bodies with their features, shapes, functions, transformations, and adaptations, as well as animal and plant bodies, microscopic entities such as viruses and bacteria, celestial bodies, and, thanks to technological advancements, hybrid and mechanical bodies like robots and automatons.

Renowned scientists, journalists, and intellectuals will engage in discussions and reflections on this year’s theme with the multidisciplinary and cross-cutting approach that defines the festival. The event is structured around five thematic areas: Complex bodies, original bodies, responsible bodies, plastic bodies, and restless bodies. In addition to a rich programme of talks, the festival will feature exhibitions, interactive installations, activities for schools, and workshops for young people and families.

GARR will be among the key players with a dedicated event on 12 April at 12:00 in the Auditorium Arte hall.
The session will highlight the importance of digital infrastructures in supporting researchers in multidisciplinary collaborations and explore the promising frontiers of sensing research—the innovative use of optical fibres as environmental sensors. The conference, titled  “The sea that listens and tells its story - Il mare che ascolta e racconta”, will take attendees deep into the ocean’s depths, far from surface light and noise. Here, an intricate network of electronic eyes and ears helps monitor climate change, biodiversity, and ecosystems by listening to the sea. At the same time, while exploring the depths, marine observatories also detect signals from space, collecting valuable data about the universe. Speakers at the event include Luigi Antonio Fusco, professor at the University of Salerno and INFN associate (Naples section); Giuditta Marinaro, senior technologist at INGV, coordinator of international activities for EMSO-ERIC, and head of research on geosphere-ocean-atmosphere interactions; Paolo Bolletta, optical infrastructure expert at GARR; and Fabrizio Bocchino, researcher at INAF - Astronomical Observatory of Palermo. The discussion will be moderated by science journalist and communicator Giorgia Burzachechi.

Produced by the Fondazione Musica per Roma, with project partnership from Codice Edizioni, the Rome Science Festival is promoted by Roma Capitale – Department of Culture, and organised in collaboration with INAF and INFN. Scientific partners include Bioparco di Roma, CMCC, CNR, ENEA, ESA, GARR, GSSI, Humanitas University, Human Technopole, IIT, INGV, ISPRA, Museo Galileo – Institute and Museum of the History of Science, and the Planetarium of Roma Capitale.

Visit the event website

March 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of the LHC Optical Private Network (LHCOPN), the first global collaboration dedicated to managing and transferring the vast amounts of data generated by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments at CERN in Geneva.

From 18 to 20 March, Sardinia hosted three intensive days focused on the future of research, featuring discussions on the latest scientific and managerial advancements related to Italy's bid for the Einstein Telescope. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between GARR and the Sardinia Region, and the vision for the ET-SUnLab research centre (Einstein Telescope Sardinia Underground Laboratory) was unveiled. These three interconnected and significant initiatives are designed to strengthen Italy’s bid and attract investment to the region.

The Skills4EOSC project, coordinated by GARR, concludes and will present its achievements at the Final Conference, scheduled for June 11, 2025, in Paris, at Campus Condorcet.

Registration is now open for the GARR Conference 2025, the annual event where experiences are shared on the use of digital infrastructures and services by those who rely on the GARR network and those who actively contribute to its development and the enhancement of its services.

GARR is a partner in the European SENSEI project, which aims to unlock the sensing potential of fibre optic networks to enhance the security, resilience, and efficiency of telecommunications infrastructure across Europe.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, the #GARRforSTEM campaign is launching—an initiative by GARR to celebrate the role of women in technology and computing.

President Maurizio Tira is among the key figures of the third edition of Futura Expo, scheduled to take place in Brescia from 7 to 9 March 2025.