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The German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ) is a national facility that provides services for earth system scientists. By offering powerful computing platforms, sophisticated and high-capacity data management and superior service exclusively for premium simulation-based climate research, it enjoys a unique status among German high-performance computing centres.
The “Levante” High-Performance Computing System for Earth System Research (HLRE-4) went into operation in 2022. It is comprised of a CPU partition with a computing performance of 14 PetaFLOPS and a GPU partition that additionally delivers 2.8 PetaFLOPS. This enables researchers to run simulations with global climate and earth system models at a particularly high resolution, for example. For the first time, such models allow for a purely physical representation of important small-scale climate processes.
The DKRZ plays a vital role in the infrastructure of German climate change research. Its results complement research on observable changes in climate to form the basis for sustainable policy.
Founded in 1987 as a limited liability company (GmbH) with four shareholders (largest: Max Planck Society), the DKRZ is a non-profit and non-commercial service centre for climate science in Germany. The later Physics Nobel laureate Klaus Hasselmann was one of its founding directors.
1 centre in Hamburg
Approx. 120 staff
Non-profit limited company
Budget of approx. 15 million euros (2024)
Enabling climate simulations: DKRZ’s high-performance computing facilities are used to conduct research based on climate modelling. Its computing power and storage systems enable the application of sophisticated, realistic numerical models for the quantitative computation of complex processes in the climate and earth system.
Analysis of large data sets: In addition to this, the DKRZ installs and maintains software tools and hardware infrastructure for the archiving, management and analysis of extremely large data sets. DKRZ is a partner in various research and infrastructure projects facilitating climate modelling and hence the analysis, visualisation and management of climate model data. The centre is a central node in the national and European network of climate researchers and one of the leading partners in ESiWACE, the EU-funded Centre of Excellence in Simulation of Weather and Climate in Europe. Furthermore, DKRZ hosts and maintains the ICSU World Data Centre for Climate.
The DKRZ has an annual budget of 15 million euros (2024), which is funded by the four shareholders – Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the two Helmholtz Centers Alfred Wegener Institute and Hereon – in accordance with the size of their stake.
The costs of the supercomputer Levante were covered on the basis of the funding agreement between the Helmholtz Association, the Max Planck Society and the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. A total of 45 million euros was made available for the HLRE-4 project.
