Atos establishes Life Sciences Centre of Excellence to support researchers worldwide

London, UK; Paris, France - July 8 2020 – Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, in agreement with the Wellcome Genome Campus, in Cambridgeshire, UK, today announces its global HPC, AI & Quantum Life Sciences Centre of Excellence in order to provide organisations on Campus, and global genome and bio-data institutes worldwide, access to emerging HPC, AI & Quantum technologies.

The Atos Life Sciences Centre of Excellence will complement the existing Campus compute facilities with access to leading-edge technologies, such as Quantum, High Performance Computing and AI, supported by Atos’ products, services and expertise in these sectors. Atos experts will collaborate directly with genome and biological data research scientists to help boost Life Sciences discovery and innovation.

“I am delighted that Atos are joining our Campus community, delivering greater insight into biodata at superior speeds and efficacy will lead to innovative new methodologies and products, as well as reducing the research-to-product development journey creating a significant positive impact for the various areas of life sciences”, said Dr Julia Wilson, Associate Director, Wellcome Genome Campus.

“With significant development plans in place Atos will quickly become a valuable partner within our Campus community. Now is the time to power our research through the applied use of innovative technology that could greatly advance biodata research. This will lead to greater opportunities to translate research into tangible societal benefits”, added Dr Jo Mills, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre Manager, Wellcome Genome Campus.

In this Centre, researchers and technologists worldwide will explore the different usages of technologies such as Quantum, High Performance Computing and AI through a broad range of activities such as proof of concept production, innovation workshops, courses and conferences.

Atos Quantum Learning Machine, the world's highest-performing commercially available quantum simulator, is already assisting the research analysis capability of organizations including Bayer in Germany, the Centre of Computation  Research and Technology (CCRT) at the CEA in France, The Hartree Centre in UK and Oakridge National Laboratory in the US.

Researchers will also be able to benefit from Atos’ powerful BullSequana X supercomputers, which deliver high-performance computing power to support researchers achieve results faster. They are being used today across the globe to support the current fight against Covid-19. 

Pierre Barnabé, Senior Executive Vice-President, Head of Big Data & Cybersecurity at Atos, said: “We are delighted to establish the Centre, as the potential for collaborative opportunity with Life Sciences institutes globally is enormous. Quantum, High Performance Computing as well as edge computing assisted by artificial intelligence hold exciting, transformative potential for the life sciences sector, and we are looking forward to applying these in real world scenarios by combining research expertise with our technological expertise to unlock opportunity.”

The Centre is already operating remotely and is providing support to researchers worldwide studying many different aspects of Covid-19 such as characterizing the structure of SARS-CoV-2 to better understand its mechanisms of infection or modelling the spread of the disease by using mathematical methods.

Additionally, two demos are being developed which unlock the value of HPC and AI to model cardiovascular anomalies and to accelerate the interpretation of medical procedures. These will be showcased as soon as the Centre opens its doors.