Al-Farabi University hopes its supercomputer to be among world's top 500

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ASTANA. KAZINFORM - The Al-Farabi Kazakh National University goes to great lengths to implement the initiatives set forth by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in his recent state-of-the-nation address "New Opportunities of Development Amidst the Fourth Industrial Revolution", Kazinform has learnt from the university's press service.

In 2015, President Nazarbayev suggested his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to create a world-class technology park, a Kazakhstan's analogue of the Silicon Valley, at the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. The KazNU joined forces with the University Alliance of the Silk Road, which unites over 130 universities, to turn this idea into reality.

The ambitious project was supported by the Alliance Executive Committee and Russia's Skolkovo which wants to cooperate with KazNU in the sphere of innovations, science and high technologies.

A supercomputer granted by the Chinese Government will become the core of the technology park. When implemented, the project will allow to create a unified data processing center for all tertiary institutions in Kazakhstan and members of the Alliance. The center will render digital services and carry out HPC for research projects. KazNU expects that its supercomputer will become a powerful computing resource and one of the world's top 500 supercomputers.

Moreover, KazNU will focus on introducing smart technologies into its day-to-day functioning, smart technologies into its campus infrastructure management, Big Data technologies into shaping its analytical system, development of IT services outsourcing and so on. A new IT School of the university that has been unveiled this year will train IT specialists in the sphere of high technologies.

The fact that such tech giants as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Konika Minolta, Fujitsu, Huawei, Samsung, and Kaspersky Lab opened their centers at the university proves KazNU is on the frontline of IT education in Kazakhstan. As a strategic partner of the university, Microsoft is to introduce its business analytics service Microsoft Power B.

It is to be recalled that KazNU was the only CIS university to make a presentation of its E-campus project at the Microsoft Campus Connections. The project generated intense interest of foreign universities and reps of IT companies.

Active development of IT and distance learning technologies enabled development of open education. KazNU's work on its own e-learning course allowed it to create the National Platform of Open Education (moocs.kz) together with the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The platform has already garnered support of members of the University Alliance of the Silk Road.

Currently, the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University is an intellectual corporation with second to none scientific and innovative infrastructure in Kazakhstan. Within the framework of its Al-Farabi University - Smart City project, it trains specialists for new Kazakhstan's digital economy.

 

 

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