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The ChEESE Centre of Excellence for Exascale in Solid Earth and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) have been awarded the 2025 HPC Innovation Excellence Award for a pioneering real-time earthquake simulation conducted during Mexico’s National Earthquake Drill on 19 September 2025.
The award, presented at SC25 in St. Louis (USA), recognises HPC projects with outstanding real-world impact.
The trial was carried out under the ChEESE-2P Centre of Excellence and the DT-GEO project, in collaboration with the Institute of Geophysics of UNAM, the Mexican National Seismological Service (SSN), Mondaic, and GEO3BCN-CSIC.
“This award highlights the importance of collaboration between institutions and the practical application of HPC in disaster preparedness. The trial with our partners in Mexico shows how European supercomputing technologies can directly support emergency management and public safety,” said Marisol Monterrubio, scientific lead of the test at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
During the exercise, researchers from BSC’s Wave Phenomena Group (CASE Department) and the Computer Sciences Department used the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer and the Urgent Computing Integrated Services for Earthquakes (UCIS4EQ) workflow - powered by Salvus, developed by Mondaic - to generate high-resolution, near real-time simulations of a hypothetical magnitude 8.1 earthquake. The outputs included shaking maps, seismic hazard metrics, and impact assessments designed to support decision-making during emergency operations.
This marks an important milestone for European HPC in crisis management, validating the integration of real-time seismic alert data, automatic data transfer between Mexican and European infrastructures, and advanced visualisation tools, including videos showing the propagation and expected impacts of the simulated event.
"What sets this initiative apart, in my opinion, is its unique position at the crossroads of several HPC domains. We begin with an urgent, admittedly unconventional, need for immediate computing power. We meet this challenge with semi-automated, end-to-end workflows, boosted by the most efficient GPU-enabled simulation packages. And we do it all for one crucial reason: to protect vulnerable populations right after an earthquake strikes. In full coordination with the responders", said Josep de la Puente, Group Leader of Wave Phenomena at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
The Mexican National Seismological Service, a member of the ChEESE Industry and Users Board (IUB), has played a key role in guiding services toward real operational needs. Participation in Mexico’s national drill is one of the large-scale tests foreseen in ChEESE to validate services with end users in real-world environments.
Established in 2011 by the HPC User Forum and presented by Hyperion Research, the HPC Innovation Excellence Award honours HPC applications that deliver measurable, high-impact benefits in fields such as simulation, AI, advanced analytics, and quantum technologies.
About ChEESE-2P
ChEESE-2P develops advanced HPC-based simulations and services for seismic hazard assessment, supporting both scientific research and public safety.
More: https://cheese2.eu