ULAKBİM
High Performance Computing and Data Infrastructures
ACHIEVE
The ACHIEVE Project is a strategic initiative aiming to improve the quality of information technologies, particularly in the field of high-performance computing (HPC), in the European Union higher education system. The project will develop a dual-degree master's program covering specializations in advanced, environmentally sustainable and efficient HPC systems with a focus on cloud and network infrastructures. Over 150 students are expected to benefit from this program. In addition to the master's program, stand-alone online learning modules on cloud, network infrastructure and ICT will be developed, through which students and professionals will have access to self-paced, flexible and in-depth learning opportunities.
TUBITAK ULAKBIM will contribute to the preparation of training modules to be developed in the field of GAD by using TRUBA resources. In addition, it will take an active role in defining the internship program planned for the second year of the master's program and in providing the ICT infrastructure that will be needed during the training. The ACHIEVE Project started on October 1, 2024 and will continue for 48 months.
ULAKNET-3
ULAKNET-3 project The project aims to expand the electronic communication infrastructure established under the ULAKNET-2 project to provide researchers in Turkey with a flexible and sustainable infrastructure with high capacity, national and international connections, compatible with new technologies. Currently, the backbone structure of ULAKNET consists of the main collection centers in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir and the triangular backbone connections connecting these centers, and the integration of the ITU-Gebze line and the Eskişehir and Konya collection centers to the main backbone. Within the scope of the ULAKNET-3 project, it is aimed to redesign the existing infrastructure and include new centers, and to create a flexible structure with higher capacity, wider coverage and enabling the use of new technologies.
TRUBA 2024
TRUBA, a national High Performance and Grid Computing Center operating under TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM since 2003, provides large-scale computing and data storage infrastructure for scientific research, engineering applications and data-intensive computing. As of 2023, TRUBA systems serve with a total computing power of 4.6 Pflops theoretical CPU-based and 4.8 Pflops GPU-based. Supported by a data storage capacity exceeding 14.5 PBytes, clusters of different generation processors and artificial intelligence systems with graphics processors, this infrastructure is accessible to academic, public and private sector users. With the new generation data center commissioned at the beginning of 2024, the ARF supercomputer and artificial intelligence clusters were added to the TRUBA infrastructure, and these systems entered the world ranking in the November 2024 Top500 list.
TRUBA resources support not only individual researchers but also national projects carried out under programs such as TÜBİTAK ARDEB, BAP and TEYDEB. As of 2024, the number of researchers benefiting from TRUBA systems reached 7000, while the total number of projects supported was 214. These projects cover a wide range of fields such as physics, chemistry, seismology, bioinformatics, high energy physics, artificial intelligence and big language models. In addition, federated cloud and high-performance big data analysis services are provided within the framework of European Union projects; researchers can also benefit from Europe's leading supercomputers such as MareNostrum-5. TRUBA aims to increase Turkey's scientific production and international competitiveness by continuously improving its infrastructure.
TRUBA 2023
Turkish National Science e-Infrastructure (TRUBA) Strengthening Project, It aims to meet the high-performance computing, distributed computing and scientific data warehousing needs of Turkish researchers and national and international projects. This project is a continuation and extension of the TR-Grid Research e-Infrastructure Strengthening (TR-GridReIS) project. During the project, the infrastructure and motivation established at the administrative and technical level within the scope of TR-GridReIS will be further strengthened and sustained, and the computing and storage resources that will be made available to researchers in Turkey will be brought to a level comparable to the leading centers in Europe.
EUROCC-2 and EuroCC4SEE
<The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) was established in 2018 as a partnership between the European Union and its member states to make Europe a world leader in supercomputing. Headquartered in Luxembourg, this initiative is a strategic organization that brings together 34 European countries, including Turkey. Turkey became an active member of this structure with the official participation of the Ministry of Industry and Technology in 2019. EuroHPC JU aims to create a strong Europe-wide ecosystem covering competitive and innovative supercomputing systems, quantum computing, data infrastructure and support services. In this context, it aims to increase Europe's global competitiveness in the field of artificial intelligence through initiatives such as AI Factories. Turkey participated in the BSC Artificial Intelligence Factory (BSC-AIF) project as a partner together with Spain, Portugal and Romania, and contributes to the acceleration of AI applications in public and industry through this project.
The EuroCC Projects (ongoing phasesEuroCC2 and EuroCC4SEE), one of the main projects that translate the objectives of the EuroHPC JU into practice, envisages the establishment of National Competence Centers (NCCs) in member countries and aims to raise awareness on high-performance computing (HPC), big data analytics and artificial intelligence, increase user competencies and encourage more efficient use of supercomputing resources through these centers. In Turkey, these activities are carried out under the coordination of TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM in collaboration with the National Center for High Performance Computing (UHeM) at Middle East Technical University, Sabancı University and Istanbul Technical University. NCC Turkey provides direct support to academia, government and industry representatives through training programs, consultancy services and case studies. The case studies, which aim to provide solutions to the problems of SMEs in areas such as HPC and artificial intelligence, were supported by resources provided through TRUBA and UHeM infrastructures; both technical and academic guidance was provided to companies free of charge through these projects lasting 3 to 12 months.
EUMaster4HPC
EUMaster4HPC, It is the first European master's program in high-performance computing (HPC) to be offered across Europe. Funded by the EuroHPC Joint Initiative, this program aims to bring together leading universities, research centers and industry partners across Europe to train competent and qualified experts in the field of HPC. TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM, as a subcontractor of Middle East Technical University, is involved in the dissemination activities of the project.
GraspOS
GraspOS, It is a three-year project funded under the European Union's Horizon Europe program and launched on 1 January 2023. The project aims to develop a data infrastructure that promotes open science practices and supports responsible research evaluation systems. In line with this goal, GraspOS aims to extend the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) ecosystem and provide more transparent, inclusive and effective methods for research evaluation processes. The project is carried out with the participation of partners from 18 different countries and TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM from Turkey is also a member of this consortium. GraspOS aims to build a community that embraces open science and responsible research evaluation practices and to support policy reforms in this area.
IMagine
The iMagine Project, which started on September 1, 2022 and will continue for a total of 36 months, will be carried out by TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM, EGI.eu organization as a subcontractor. For the artificial intelligence platform planned to be established and operated within the scope of the project, technical support is provided for the provision of computational and data storage resources and the realization and sustainable operation of this infrastructure.
EuroScienceGateway
EuroScienceGateway is a project supported by the European Union's Horizon Europe program that aims to make scientific workflows of research communities more accessible, reproducible and scalable. The project aims to provide user-friendly data analysis platforms integrated into cloud and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructures to meet the needs of researchers working in various scientific disciplines. In line with FAIR data principles, the project is designed to work in full harmony with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) ecosystem.
TUBITAK ULAKBIM participates as a partner in the EuroScienceGateway Project, which started on September 1, 2022 and will last for 36 months. The project will support the expansion and development of the Galaxy network, which supports researchers in the field of Bioinformatics across Europe, and the Pulsar network, which provides the infrastructure.
RI-SCALE
RI-SCALE Project, It is a three-year initiative funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe program and launched on March 1, 2025. Coordinated by the EGI Foundation, the project aims to enable research infrastructures (RIs) to more effectively exploit large and complex datasets in collaboration with 29 partner organizations across Europe. The main goal of the project is the development of data processing platforms called Scalable Data Exploitation Platforms (DEPs). These platforms aim to increase the data analysis capacity of research infrastructures by combining scientific data with pre-configured artificial intelligence tools and powerful computational resources. This will enable scientists and industry stakeholders to conduct more effective and innovative research in various fields such as environmental and biomedical sciences. ENES will benefit from existing computational and data sharing infrastructures in cooperation with EGI, EuroHPC JU, EOSC and Gaia-X in scientific communities such as EISCAT, BBMRI and Euro-BioImaging.
BSC-AIF
Within the scope of the European supercomputing ecosystem, the European Commission launched the AI Factory Project to update existing supercomputing infrastructures with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and to support their more effective use by users such as SMEs, start-ups and public institutions.
Turkey participated in this initiative as an existing partner in the MareNostrum 5 consortium. Representing Turkey in the project, TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM is supported by the Ministry of Industry and Technology and the Strategy and Budget Directorate. The consortium's BSC-AIF (Barcelona Supercomputing Center - AI Factory) project was one of the first seven AI Factory initiatives to be funded by the European Union.
The activities carried out in Turkey under the project aim to increase national capacity in the field of artificial intelligence. In this direction:
- Software and user support will be provided for the effective use of supercomputer infrastructures,
- Training programs ranging from executive level to technical staff will be organized,
- Technical consultancy will be provided to all stakeholders operating in the field of AI, especially industrial organizations.
In addition, it is aimed to contribute to the realization of the goals set by closely monitoring artificial intelligence strategies at both national and European Union levels.
ULAKBIM University Informatics Infrastructures
The "University Infrastructures Disaster Recovery Center Project", which aims to protect the IT infrastructures of universities against possible disaster scenarios, was supported by the Presidency of Strategy and Budget (SBB) in 2024. In the first phase of the project, which is planned in two phases, it is aimed to securely store a backup of critical data owned by universities within TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM. In this context, the service will first be provided to 16 state universities affected by the earthquake that occurred on February 6, 2023; afterwards, the project will be extended to all universities and data redundancy will be ensured in the IT infrastructures of higher education institutions across the country.
The second phase of the project aims to back up not only data but also services. Thus, in the event of a possible disaster, it will be possible to make the critical information systems of universities operational in a secure location over cloud-based infrastructures within specified periods of time. In this way, the capacity of universities to provide uninterrupted services will be increased, and information loss and service interruptions that may occur in times of disaster will be minimized.
The ULAKBIM University Informatics Infrastructures Project (ULAKFKM) was developed in response to the critical need arising from the data loss and lack of adequate backups at some universities following the February 6, 2023 earthquakes. This situation clearly demonstrated the need for secure and accessible data backups in universities whose system rooms were damaged, in order to restore the systems to operational status. Supported by the Strategy Budget Presidency (SBB) to meet this need, the project started in January 2024 within ULAKBIM. In the first phase of the project, it was aimed for universities in the earthquake zone to copy data to ULAKFKM. As of February 2025, the system started to provide service. Although the project is three years in total, the targeted steps until the end of 2026;
- Capacity building for other universities in Turkey to benefit from the project
- Establishing a server infrastructure in the cloud for universities that want to host their data at ULKFKM
Universities in the earthquake zone that wish to benefit from ULAKFKM in the current situation can contact the ULAKFKM team via the e-mail address below.
Communication: ulakfkm@ulakbim.gov.tr
