OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY UPDATE
January 2019
McIlvaine Company
Atos wins Deal to Make Supercomputers in India
French IT services firm Atos has won a three-year contract to build the first
phase of supercomputers under India’s $650 million National Supercomputing
Mission (NSM). The supercomputers will be used to create a cluster of 70
machines for weather forecasting, drug discovery and data mining.
The tender for these high-performance computers (HPC) had been floated by the
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), according to a report.
Atos, a global leader in digital transformation with an annual revenue of € 13
billion, would be deploying its energy efficient Direct Liquid Cooled
BullSequana supercomputers in India. Atos’s HPC R&D has designed the BullSequana
X series of servers to provide maximum flexibility in terms of interconnect,
power, and cooling, and cover the widest possible spectrum of applications. The
BullSequana X supercomputers offer an infinitely adaptable response, with a
large choice of compute nodes, accelerated nodes and specialized nodes. And this
multitude of components can be combined, in a completely customized way, into a
single system and managed as a single system using the Bull supercomputer suite.
"We are honored to be given this opportunity by the Indian authorities to be
part of the NSM initiative and to become the technology partner of C-DAC for
HPC-related platforms. We're proud to be supporting India as one of the major
markets with its strong growth expectations. The choice of the Indian government
is testament to our experience and expertise in high-performance supercomputing
and I am delighted that our BullSequana, with its unique Direct Liquid Cooling
platform, will be enabling Indian academic and research institutions to
accelerate their research," said Pierre Barnabe, Chief Operating Officer, Big
Data & Security at Atos.
The contract is for all three phases of the NSM which would be running
simultaneously, said C-DAC director general Hemant Darbari. “In Phase I, we will
be assembling three supercomputers at an outlay of $9.7 million. In Phase II, it
will be an aggregate of 10 petaflop, but the number of computers is yet to be
decided,” he said. In the first phase, Indian Institute of Technology –
Kharagpur (IIT-Kharagpur) will have a 1.3 petaflop machine and Indian Institute
of Science Education and Research, Pune (IISER Pune) and Indian Institute of
Technology, Varanasi (IIT-BHU) will have a 650 teraflop computer each, the
report said.
The NSM is divided into two key tracks, build and buy, which are being carried
out by the C-DAC and Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc – Bengaluru)
respectively.
Atos has won the contract for the ‘build’ part of the NSM for which it will
partner C-DAC in all three phases. While Phase I involves assembling of the
supercomputers, in Phase II, certain components like the motherboards would be
manufactured locally, and in the third phase, the supercomputer would be
designed in India by C-DAC.
Atos will source the components from France and assemble the supercomputers in
Chennai. “Work will happen simultaneously on all three phases, but each has
different stages of delivery. The deliveries under Phase I will start in the
first quarter of 2019 while Phase II would be around Q2 or Q3,” said Arvind
Bajaj, head of Atos Bull India.
Atos has a strong presence globally in the High Performance Computing (HPC)
business under the Bull brand. In September it unveiled its most powerful
supercomputer with a compute power of 12 petaflops in Germany, making it the
country’s most powerful supercomputer, coming in at number 16 on the recently
released Top 500 supercomputer rankings.
The company has a supercomputer and server design center in Bengaluru, which
will work closely with C-DAC on subsequent phases of the project.
Fidelity’s Colt DCS to Build Data Center in
Mumbai
Colt Data Centre Services (DCS), a Fidelity owned company, announced they are
planning to build a 100MW IT hyper-scale data center facility in Mumbai. The
company has successfully acquired land to fulfill its strategic decision to
expand into India. However, Colt did not specify the amount it is investing in
the Mumbai facility.
The growing demand for digital services has attracted international cloud
service providers such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services to enter or
expand their existing data storage footprint in the region. Mumbai has been
identified as the ideal location for Colt DCS’ entry in India since the city
already has 35 data centers, according to an October report by CBRE, a South
Asia, a real estate consulting firm.
“With half of the total population in India under the age of 25, the new
generation of digitally savvy individuals is creating a huge data footprint in
the region. As data consumption continues to rise at an exponential rate, more
businesses and consumers are demanding a reliable data and network
infrastructure to deliver fast connectivity and on-demand services,” said Detlef
Spang, CEO, Colt DCS.
The 100MW facility will be part of a campus-style development which will allow
the company to build out further data centers within the same location. To
facilitate a rapid delivery of the site, it has already secured a substantial
super high-voltage power supply of 150MVA utility feed.
The demand for data centers in India is expected to increase spurred by policy
decisions by the Indian government. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in April
asked payment companies to store all data within India to ensure access for
supervisory and monitoring purposes while the new draft policy on data
protection mandates critical personal data to be stored in India only.
Construction work is expected to commence in 2019 for completion in the second
half of 2020.
“We are tremendously excited to be part of the digital transformation journey in
India. There is a hugely unique opportunity for us to be the very first western
data center provider to enable the delivery of [cloud computing and services]
across India," Spang added.
Colt data centers are present in 13 locations in Europe and five in Asia with
Mumbai being the sixth.
Foxconn Giving $100 Million to UW-Madison for
Partnership
Foxconn Technology Group announced that it will invest $100 million in
engineering and innovation research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
making it one of the largest gifts in the school's history that comes as the
Taiwan-based electronics giant builds its first North American factory in
southeastern Wisconsin.
Foxconn CEO Terry Gou and UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank signed an
agreement that also calls for the creation of a science and technology institute
on the UW-Madison campus that will collaborate closely with the plant, which is
being built in Mount Pleasant, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of
Madison near the Illinois border.
Foxconn, the world's leading electronics manufacturer, chose Wisconsin for its
first plant outside of Asia after receiving generous incentives from the state.
Foxconn says the manufacturing campus could cost up to $10 billion and
eventually employ 13,000 people.
Finding those workers was expected to be a challenge in a state with low
unemployment. The deal announced would provide a conduit of potential interns
and employees from the state's largest university to the Foxconn plant.
"We're going to be a long-term community member in the state of Wisconsin," said
Foxconn executive Louis Woo. "We see ourselves as an enabler of talent, that's
creation of jobs. We also see us as an enabler of technology."
The Foxconn Institute for Research in Science and Technology, to be created
under the agreements, will be a hub for technological innovation and provide an
environment for research and development initiatives in medical science,
materials science, computer and data-driven science.
The institute's main location will be at the Foxconn manufacturing campus in
Racine County, but it will also have a presence in Madison.
The university said the agreements formalize its commitment to being a part of
research with Foxconn, while Foxconn will assist with research, recruiting and
creating job opportunities.
UW-Madison also agreed to raise $100 million over the next two years. The bulk
of Foxconn's $100 million, which Blank said was the largest industry research
partnership in university history, will go toward constructing a new building on
the engineering campus.
"I'm excited," Blank said. "You don't get $100 million gifts very often."
Foxconn has also announced plans to open its North American office headquarters
in Milwaukee and technology centers that could employ hundreds in Eau Claire and
Green Bay. Gov. Scott Walker has praised those investments outside of Racine
County, where the 22 million-square-foot manufacturing campus is being built,
saying it shows the positive statewide economic impact of the project.
State and local government incentives for the main Foxconn project in Racine
County could top $4 billion, mostly in cash payments from the state. That price
tag, the largest in U.S. history for a foreign corporation, has drawn criticism
from Democratic opponents of Walker, who negotiated the deal. Walker faces
Democrat Tony Evers, who has vowed to renegotiate the deal, in the November
election.
Wisconsin voters appear torn on the value of the Foxconn project. In a Marquette
University Law School poll last week, 44 percent of registered voters said the
state is paying more than the plant is worth. A majority, 61 percent, said they
felt the plant would substantially improve the Milwaukee-area economy, but an
equal percentage said businesses where they live will not directly benefit.
Rapid Novor Expands Proteomics Lab with Third
Mass Spectrometer
Rapid Novor has expanded its proteomics lab with the addition of a third mass
spectrometer – enabling the company to take on more projects, says CEO.
Rapid Novor’s REmAb antibody protein sequencing platform uses mass spectrometry
to distinguish and sequence proteins for monocolonal antibody (mAb) engineering.
The Canada-headquartered company recently tripled its laboratory footprint to
create room for the Thermo Fisher Orbitrap Fusion mass spectrometer and the
Evosep LC system.
Mingjie Xie, CEO and co-founder of Rapid Novor said the need for expansion was
pressing: “Our lab is at capacity, essentially, the machine is really fully
booked for all the [outsourced] projects as well as the internal projects we’re
taking on for our R&D purposes. So, the extension of this lab will really
increase our capacity so we can take on more projects at the same time. So, we
can get our throughput at a much higher level.”
The company opened the mass spectrometry lab last year and has since launched a
commercial service offering, dubbed WILD.
The addition of the new spectrometer supports EThcD fragmentation, which is a
“critical” component of Rapid Novor’s WILD method and REmAb platform. According
to the company, this fragmentation enables the company to accurately distinguish
Isoleucine and Leucine using mass spectrometry.
Xie said, the ability to distinguish the two amino acids through mass
spectrometry has previously been very difficult, as they both have the same
molecular weight, which mass spectrometry measures as a way of distinguishing
proteins. However, with the fragmentation used in WILD they can be
distinguished.
While Rapid Novor is not the inventor of this technology, it is the first to
commercialize it, according to the company
“For the first time we can use mass spectrometry alone to confidently determine
every single amino acid in an antibody protein sequence,” said Xie.
The new addition to the company's facility opened August 17th, 2018.
Murata Invests in MEMS Sensor Manufacturing in
Finland
Murata, a manufacturer of electronic components, is significantly increasing
global production capacity, including most recently its factory located in
Finland. After having recently purchased the previously leased buildings, the
company will construct a new building of approximately 172,160 sq. ft. (16,000
square meters). The new facility is scheduled to be completed by the end of
2019.
The total value of the investment is five billion yen and is underpinned by the
growing worldwide demand for MEMS sensors used in the automotive industry and
various health and industrial applications.
“The market for advanced driver-assistance systems, self-directed cars,
healthcare, and other emerging technologies are expected to be significant
growth drivers. MEMS sensors are critical solutions for these applications and
deliver proven measurement accuracy and stability in a variety of conditions,”
said Yuichiro Hayata, Managing Director for Murata Electronics Oy.
“With the construction of this new production building, we will significantly
increase our MEMS sensors production capacity. Moreover, by responding to the
strong demand of gyro sensors, accelerometers, and combo sensors in the
automotive, industry and healthcare fields, this will strengthen our business
base in the automotive market, industrial equipment and medical devices market,
while contributing to the economy and employment of Finland,” stated Makoto
Kawashima, Director of Sensor Product Division in Murata Manufacturing.
With the factory expansion in Finland, Murata will strengthen both R&D and
manufacturing operations with a long-term perspective for increasing utilization
of this facility. The company currently employs 1,000 people in Finland and
estimates to create 150–200 new jobs in 2018–2019.
Murata acquired the Finnish company VTI Technologies – today known as Murata
Electronics Oy – in 2012. It is the only factory of Murata which manufactures
MEMS sensors outside of Japan, and has experienced tremendous growth over the
last 10 years. This site in Finland also hosts R&D space and one of the biggest
cleanroom facilities in the country.
Murata Electronics Oy is part of the Japanese Murata Group. The company is
located in Vantaa and specializes in the development and manufacture of 3D MEMS
(micro electro mechanical systems) sensors mainly for safety critical
applications in automotive, as well as in healthcare and industrial
applications. The company employs 1000 people in Finland.
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