On January 30th, our group welcomed researchers from the Superconducting Materials and Functional Nanoengineered Structures Group (SUMAN) at ICMAB-CSIC. The visit was part of ICMAB’s annual initiative to organize group excursions to research centers of interest in their field, and this year’s destination was Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), motivated by ongoing collaborations with our group.
The visit began with a presentation by Dani Gallart, titled “Computer Applications & Fusion at BSC”, where he briefly introduced the history and mission of our group, highlighting the role of advanced computational methods in fusion research, as well as the interdisciplinary collaborations and key scientific challenges that drive the group’s work. Dani also outlined the group’s core research areas, including plasma modelling and heating, neutronics studies for breeding blanket design, and multiphysics simulations for fusion applications. The talk concluded with an overview of in-house developments such as Alya4fusion, a digital twin platform for magnetic confinement fusion devices.
The delegation then took part in a guided tour of BSC’s facilities, where they had the opportunity to see MareNostrum 5 and MareNostrum Ona. Moreover, the group had the opportunity to address their questions about these cutting-edge infrastructures.
Overall, the visit strengthened ties between the two research groups. Beyond showcasing ongoing work, it revealed several shared research interests and opened the door to potential collaborations and future interactions.