3M commissioned to protect the Middle East's most sophisticated computer

The development of the Shaheen 16-rack IBM Blue Gene/P system with 65,536 processor cores delivering 222 TFLOPS (trillion floating point operations per second) is a joint venture between technology giant IBM and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, and is part of the Center for Deep Research project.

The computer, which will be ranked as the most complex high performance computing (HPC) system in the Middle East and as the sixth in the world on completion, is currently being built in the US at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Laboratory in Yorktown Heights, NY, and will be moved to KAUST's campus near Jeddah before the university's official opening in September of this year.

3M's role in the protection of the computer following its arrival into Saudi Arabia will be to provide its leading Novec 1230 clean agent system to KAUST's Data Centre building, which comprises of ten rooms, and an additional suite of six computer rooms containing ten of the largest computers available in the world today.

Novec 1230 will additionally protect eight rooms at the campus's Super Computer Centre building, with the entire project supervised and managed by Saudi Aramco.

The Novec 1230 fluid, a fire suppression fluid based on sustainable technology, is designed to balance the need for human safety with low environmental impact. It is a next-generation halon replacement and has a zero ozone-depletion potential - making the fluid a safe, advantageous and efficient fire-suppressing liquid.

The liquid has an atmospheric lifetime of just five days and a global warming potential of one, in line with Saudi Arabia's halon replacement regulations.

The non-conductive, non-corrosive and fast -evaporating fluid is commercially available globally and is suitable for use in occupied spaces. The fluid can be applied in streaming, flooding, inerting and explosion suppression applications in the following areas: data processing and control rooms, telecommunications, marine applications, oil and gas applications, and archives and museums. Novec 1230 fluid leaves no residue to clean up so systems can remain operational. Additionally, the fluid can be used with existing materials of construction.

The fluid, which is stored as a liquid, becomes a gas upon discharge and is therefore easier to handle and store. In addition, there is a distinct advantage in handling low-vapor pressure liquids like Novec 1230 fluid - it can be shipped by air in bulk quantities.

Because of its properties as a non-pressurized liquid, refilling after discharge is much simpler than filling from a bulk cylinder of gas. Systems charged with Novec 1230 fluid can be used in specialized streaming and conventional total flooding applications, localized flooding systems and directional spray type applications.

"Our Novec 1230 Fire Protection Fluid is of great benefit to many industries in the region and is specifically designed for such projects as the KAUST's campus. At 3M we are experts in providing fire protection to such sophisticated machinery and technologies, and thanks to our expert partners within the Kingdom, we are confident of the utmost safety for the HPC machine,"

commented Kamal Abdelhamid Sghair 3M.

Novec 1230 Fire Protection Fluid helps industries in the region to attain their environmental sustainability goals, while safely providing the most modern and effective tools for fire protection.