The European Space Agency, in partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), has inaugurated its state-of-the-art high-performance computing (Space HPC) environment at ESRIN, Italy.

The opening, on March 12, 2025, marks an important milestone in ESA’s mission to push the boundaries of innovation for European space activities.

Space HPC is designed to improve ESA’s scientific research and technological development efforts while also providing small and medium-sized enterprises with access to resources that foster innovation and collaboration within the European space industry. The computational environment is designed to process massive datasets, run complex simulations, and accelerate artificial intelligence applications.

As a demonstrator infrastructure, Space HPC will help industries to mitigate risks associated with data processing, modelling, and simulations. Its scalable capabilities will enable rapid experimentation, learning from failures, and fast access to testbeds and demonstration services.

“With this new facility, ESA is providing a flexible supercomputing infrastructure in support of research and development testing and rapid benchmarking for ESA programs, industrial players and researchers,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher. “Among others, SMEs, startups, and the Φ-lab will be able to access resources that promote innovation and collaboration in the European space industry.”

The Space HPC provides a critical infrastructure to power the connected digital economy in support of the European Green Deal and Digital Agenda. ESA remains at the service of the space community in its quest to become more agile and effective, keeping European citizens at the very heart of the work it does.”

“The ESA Space HPC at ESRIN will be the central ESA reference for any kind of high-performance computing need for research and development for any ESA Directorate and for our industrial partners,” said ESA ESRIN’s Simonetta Cheli. “The Earth Observation program, the largest program of ESA, is naturally a key actor in the HPC domain with strong impact on Earth observation data management and the development of novel applications and services. This symbiotic relationship is aided by the proximity to the Earth Observation data here at ESRIN.”

Several test use cases from various ESA departments were presented to showcase the capabilities and strategic importance of Space HPC and demonstrating the benefits of its computing performance. For example, the Space Safety Program has used Space HPC to improve end-to-end space weather modelling in Europe to help improve warnings of solar activity that could harm infrastructure in space or on the ground.

Using Space HPC, ESA and its partners will now have a platform to accelerate innovation, shorten development cycles, and gain a competitive edge in an era of exponential data growth and AI. Space HPC will allow industrial players to de-risk data, modelling, and simulations, helping with the development of research and development applications and ensuring a secure environment for industrial collaboration while boosting European competitiveness in space innovation and research.

Beyond its role in space exploration, Space HPC will serve as a critical infrastructure for powering the connected digital economy, aligning with the European green deal and digital agenda.

It is intentionally scaled to add significant value while remaining complementary to national and European HPC infrastructures rather than competing with them.