The story behind the name of the PARADOX cluster

Story PARADOX Videos

While we wait for PARADOX-V to become fully operational, let's recall the story behind the name of the first installation of the PARADOX cluster. We approached Dr. Aleksandar Belic, one of the founders of the Scientific Computing Laboratory at the Institute of Physics Belgrade (IPB), which houses the PARADOX high-performance computing cluster, to share the story with us.

"We have always had high-performance computing resources at the Institute of Physics Belgrade, and we have always given them sonorous names", reminisced Aleksandar, referring to IPB's Pandora supercomputer in the 1990s. He explained the crucial significance of the first PARADOX installation within the European Grid Infrastructure back in 2004: "It was one of the strongest nodes in the European network, which is really paradoxical if you look at how Serbia is economically weaker than other large countries. And then we simply got into a paradoxical situation...".

Aleksandar explained that the PARADOX cluster was not only strong but also utilized to the maximum extent, almost 100%. He further clarified that this is the situation even today. He emphasized that in a relatively poor country, it is necessary to use resources to the fullest extent possible. Computers lose their value quickly because they are rapidly replaced with faster and more efficient models. Therefore, it is essential to purchase them only when they can be used immediately to create new knowledge, which is the ultimate goal of research institutes.

EuroCC 3 has received funding from the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under Grant Agreement No. 101306701. The JU receives support from the European Union‘s Digital Europe Programme and Germany, Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, and Kosovo.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. Neither the European Union nor the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking can be held responsible for them.

HPC in Europe is the umbrella brand uniting Europe's high-performance computing initiatives across 36+ countries.