History of the Nestum Cluster
The cluster was designed, built and configured by the Monte Carlo group at Faculty of Physics, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.
The Monte Carlo group has previous experience operating the Physon HPC cluster, which is the main computational machine of the University of Sofia campus. Specializations of team members in EPCC (Edinburgh, UK ), CINECA (Bologna, Italy), BSC (Barcelona, Spain), HLRS (Stuttgart, Germany), RWTH (Aachen, Germany) are highly acknowledged.
Mission of the HPC laboratory
The mission of the laboratory is to support computational science, in which interdisciplinary teams of scientists consider fundamental problems in science and engineering that require computation and have broad scientific and economic impacts.
The mission of the HPC laboratory as a part of the Sofia Tech Park laboratory complex is to deliver reliable, sustainable computing resources 24/7 and services to facilitate the use of high-performance computing and to meet the small scale and midrange computational demands of the scientific research community in the academic institutions and high-tech SMEs located all over the country and the region.
The HPC team takes forward the policy developed in the Communication of the European Commission on Big Data and supports the European Open Science policy agenda, which aims to increase the quality and impact of science, building on the achievements of Open Access. In 2025, the European Union (EU) is actively promoting Open Science through various initiatives focused on open access to research outputs, FAIR data, and research assessment reform. Key players like the European University Association (EUA) and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) are driving this agenda, with events like the Open Science Fair highlighting international collaboration. The HPC team participates in EuroCC2 funded by the EuroHPC JU with a goal to identify and address the skills gaps in the European High Performance Computing (HPC) ecosystem and to ensure a consistent skills base.
The head of the laboratory leads another project in Bulgaria funded by the EuroHPC JU, namely Eumaster4HPC (European Master for High Performance Computing ). The EUMaster4HPC is more than a Master’s programme—it’s a gateway to European collaboration, innovation, and leadership in HPC.
At the HPC lab user training is conducted on-site and online using a modern audio-visual system and an electronic board.
The HPC cluster NESTUM with 24 computing nodes is based on Fujitsu Primergy RX2530 M1 servers with two Intel Xeon E5-2698v3@2.3 GHz processors https://hpc-lab.sofiatech.bg/infrastructure/.
The laboratory has а specialized equipment for testing the working condition of electronic boards, for temperature control of electronic components.
The laboratory team has expertise in the field of HPC+ technologies and their applications in applied sciences, mathematics, engineering technologies, medicine, and economics.
The HPCL team collaborates with the Centre of Excellence UNITe, specifically with the Constantine of Preslav University of Shumen, to help the transfer of HPC+ technologies in the Northeast Region.