Rolls Royce will deliver mtu Kinetix PowerPacks for a supercomputer in Saudi Arabia where, in the event of a power outage, the constantly rotating accumulator will guarantee the starting of a diesel engine and instantly secure critical load.

mtu Kinetic PowerPacks. Image credit: Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce commissioned the first six PowerPacks for the Shaheen supercomputer located at King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

Rolls-Royce will provide a total of 12 units to KAUST, delivered in two groups of six systems. Each group will have one available as a back-up in each group (5 + 1 redundancy). The power system is equipped with dynamically rotating kinetic energy accumulators designed to provide uninterruptible power to the university’s Scientific Computing Data Center, which hosts the supercomputer.

“The mtu Kinetic PowerPacks are state-of-the-art, uninterruptible electrical power systems that are designed for operating in extreme environments and provide the highest reliability of back-up power for the most critical and essential systems, such as healthcare facilities, airports, data centers and in our case, our future supercomputer Shaheen III, which will be the most powerful supercomputer in the Middle East and allow KAUST to greatly enhance its ability for scientific discovery and AI Innovation,” said Matthew Early, vice president, Facilities for KAUST.

Each mtu Kinetic PowerPack has a power output of 1.6MW, operates in medium voltage at 13.8kV, 60Hz and is powered by a mtu 16V 4000 G74S diesel engine.

The systems also are designed for humid ambient conditions and temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius.

“The addition of the PowerPacks enhances the capability of the KAUST utilities system by achieving power conditioning in addition to delivering reliable power to critical computing loads,” said Hesham A. Alsulaimani, director, utilities services for KAUST.

The Shaheen supercomputer is expected to be 20 times faster than KAUST’s current system and the most powerful supercomputer in the Middle East. It’s designed to tackle crucial societal and environmental challenges by being able to process vast amounts of data at unprecedented speed.