The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC) has started its activity at its new corporate headquarters, the BSC-Repsol Building at 1-3 Plaça Eusebi Güell in Barcelona. Catalonia’s minister for Research and Universities, Gemma Geis; Spain’s secretary general for Research of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Raquel Yotti; the rector of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC), Daniel Crespo; the president of the Repsol Foundation, Antonio Brufau, and the director of the BSC, Mateo Valero, participated in a brief ceremony celebrating the inauguration of one of the largest scientific and technological facilities in Barcelona.

Video on the new building (YouTube): https://youtu.be/n8g_CXLGXyE

The new headquarters of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center is a 12,000 m² building that has four office floors, 530 workstations, 35 meeting rooms, two training rooms, an auditorium and various meeting points to promote the exchange of knowledge among researchers. Two-thirds of BSC staff will be located at the headquarters, and the remaining 765 employees work at nearby buildings that share the location of the BSC-Repsol Building in the Torre Girona gardens.

The BSC-Repsol Building cost 19.6 million euros to build and has been funded thanks to the contributions of the patrons of the BSC (the Spanish government’s Ministry of Science and Innovation, the Catalan government’s Ministry of Research and Universities and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) and the collaboration of the Repsol Foundation and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

A walkway connects the new building to what has so far been the BSC’s most emblematic building, the Torre Girona chapel, which currently houses the MareNostrum 4 supercomputer. A new basement room for supercomputers is being built that will allow supercomputing infrastructure of greater volume and capacity, such as the future MareNostrum 5, to be installed. When this happens, the Torre Girona chapel will remain an iconic and open space that houses supercomputing infrastructure and first-rate data.

The director of the BSC, Mateo Valero, has stressed that “this new building symbolises, in some way, the growth that the BSC has experienced in its little more than 15 years of existence” and has affirmed that “one of its fundamental contributions is that it will allow a greater interaction between the more than 600 researchers of the Center, who until recently were spread over different buildings and who will now have meeting points in which to exchange ideas and experiences and create new synergies, all of which is positive for the creation of knowledge”.


The minister for Research and Universities, Gemma Geis, has valued the “strategic role played by the BSC as a dynamic agent of cutting-edge research on an international scale and as an engine of technology transfer and innovation for the Catalan economy”.

The secretary general for Research, Raquel Yotti, highlighted that the “Barcelona Supercomputing Center - National Supercomputing Center is a leading centre in Europe and Spain for supercomputing initiatives. In Europe, its leadership in the Spanish contribution to initiatives that seek to advance towards European digital sovereignty is significant. In Spain, the BSC coordinates and leads the Spanish Supercomputing Network since 2007, in which 13 nodes distributed in 11 autonomous communities collaborate to provide computing and data services to the research community. The firm commitment of the Government of Spain, which provides 60% of the Center’s funding, together with the contributions of the Government of Catalonia and the UPC, have made it possible to undertake large investments in MareNostrum supercomputers and in the new building, with the collaboration of the Repsol Foundation and the ERDF.”

For the rector of the UPC, Daniel Crespo, “the BSC is a source of pride for the country and for the UPC. It is a great satisfaction to see how a project that was conceived at the UPC more than 20 years ago has reached the highest level of excellence and global scientific competitiveness. The scientific research carried out at the BSC benefits the UPC, Catalonia, Spain and humanity as a whole.”

In his speech, Antonio Brufau pointed out that the BSC-Repsol Building is a unique space, linked to technology and innovation, underlining the key role that science plays in the development and construction of a modern and inclusive societ