Sugon is one of the world's leading producers of supercomputers. And now the Chinese company has entered the European market by building the Arctur-2 supercomputer in the Slovenian town of Nova Gorica. CGTN's Aljosa Milenkovic has the story. 

Just a few years ago this was an old and dilapidated warehouse, while today, it hosts this:  Europe's only privately owned supercomputer. Those who speak binary code might understand "teraflops" and "CPU cores" – and appreciate the unit's 1.5 petabytes of memory. For the rest of us, suffice it to say, this is one impressive machine.

TRISTAN PAHOR, MANAGER, ARCTUR DATA CENTER "What you see behind me is not one big box of supercomputer, but those are servers, very powerful servers which are connected via very fast computer network and connected like that they make a supercomputer. So supercomputer is not one big black box, but it is composed from multiple parts."

So, this is not just one oversized calculator, though we have to say it still bears a resemblance to some of its Hollywood cousins.

ALJOSA MILENKOVIC, NOVA GORICA "This is not the infamous "HAL 9000" from the legendary Stanley Kubrick movie 'The Space Odyssey'. It's just an ordinary 21st century supercomputer, which can do all the necessary calculations for those who need some extra potency. And of course, those who can afford its weighty rental fee."

Those are mostly companies which need to test designs of their products before they enter production, like aircraft and automotive manufacturers.  Its computer simulations can dramatically decrease costs associated with product development. It is also used for weather forecast models and simulations, as well as any calculations related to the dynamics of fluids. Tomi Ilijas is the man in charge, who began this project some 10 years ago. Now, in collaboration with the Chinese company Sugon, total investment here tops five million US dollars.

TOMI ILIJAS, CEO & PRESIDENT, ARCTUR D.O.O. "Sugon is the fourth largest high-performance computer manufacturer in the world, and the largest in Asia, the largest in China. So, at that time they didn't have any installation in Europe. So, it was their good move in the marketing sense, and also from our way, because we got very good price at the time, and we signed a long-term partnership."

Ilijas says continued investment will be needed since rapid advancements in technology mean he'll need a new supercomputer about every five years. But with expanding demand for supercomputer services around the world, Ilijas and his crew at Arctur are overwhelmingly optimistic about the future. Aljosa Milenkovic, CGTN, Nova Gorica.