Mexico to Build Latin America’s Largest Supercomputer

Mexico City — The Government of Mexico has signed an agreement with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center to bolster the Mexican Supercomputing Center. The signing was announced during the morning press conference, known as "La Mañanera," on November 19.

Rosaura Ruiz Gutiérrez, head of the Secretariat of Science, Technology, Humanities, and Innovation, explained that this model will assist the country in areas such as weather forecasting, particularly following the extraordinary rainfall experienced in five states of the country.

"This is great news for Mexican science, and to begin this process we are working with Mexican universities. We are going to sign the agreement with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center… we are going to begin an entire process to strengthen this area in Mexico and take advantage of best practices," Ruiz Gutiérrez stated in the presence of President Claudia Sheinbaum.

She emphasized that the agreement also covers areas of utmost importance for the current administration. "We have to have better methods of forecasting, in health, in education, but at this moment we are going to sign this agreement so that all of Mexico's institutions collaborate, and we train more people," she added.

Mexican Supercomputing Center Presented

As part of the "Plan México," the Mexican Supercomputing Center was presented. At the press conference, Jorge Luis Pérez Hernández, National Coordinator of Digital Infrastructure, detailed that this center will begin operations in January 2026 in coordination with the Supercomputing Center in Barcelona, with one of the objectives being to improve climate forecasts.

"Next week we will be announcing the creation of the largest supercomputer in Latin America here in our country. It will be one hundred percent Mexican and will be drastically different from the current largest one, which is in the southern part of the continent and is not owned by a government, but by a private company," Pérez Hernández said.

He explained that Barcelona is one of the world's supercomputing centers, with 20 years of experience, and houses the fifth-largest supercomputer. "A supercomputer like the one they have in Barcelona can perform 314 trillion operations per second at its maximum theoretical capacity, if I'm not mistaken. A normal computer would take many years to solve that," he indicated.

He specified that the work will begin next year and the data will be under the custody of the Mexican government. "The data would not be under the control of anyone else," he stated.

He indicated that one of the first projects to be addressed is the climate model for Mexico. "As you know, we have had some important cases with the climate in our country, some changes, and we have to improve these forecasts. To improve it, supercomputing is precisely needed," he pointed out.

Mateo Valero Cortés, director of the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC), highlighted the importance of governments having this type of supercomputing centers.

"Years ago it was said that the country that does not compute does not compete; that was more or less true. Now there is something much stronger: the country that has the calculation, computers, and its own data will be able to do things that otherwise will be done for them, and it will not be sovereign," Valero Cortés affirmed.

"And that is why it is very important to have these machines dedicated to artificial intelligence, supercomputing, to have prepared people, and to solve problems for society. For what? To make a better world, as I have said is the objective for me of research," he stated.

José Antonio Peña Merino, head of the Agency for Digital Transformation and Telecommunications, said that the Mexican supercomputer will be presented next week.

"We will now be able to start, from January, to utilize computing capacity, and we are, truly, very grateful to be able to start resolving some issues that, by instruction of President Claudia Sheinbaum, are pressing, such as the issue, of course, of meteorological prediction," Peña Merino said.

He explained that the agreement signed today is precisely to create, in Barcelona, the Mexican Supercomputing Center.

"Truly, a unique, intensive collaboration scheme, which will include, of course, under the responsibility of the Secretariat of Science and Humanities, Technology and Innovation, and of the Transformation Agency, via Infotec, that Mexican specialists, Mexican researchers, go to Barcelona with total sovereignty, in terms of data management, and can start using the capacity to resolve, I reiterate, public and pressing problems," he noted.