Eckhard Elsen (left), Director for Research and Computing, and Ram Prasad Subedi (right), Minister Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Nepal, Geneva, in building 133, where the computer hardware was prepared for shipment (Image: CERN)
On 28 June 2018 a ceremony at CERN marked the donation of computing equipment to Nepal. On this occasion, 200 servers, and twelve network switches were donated to the University of Kathmandu. The donation included more than three thousands processor cores and sixteen disk servers providing more than 700 terabytes of storage. Thanks to this equipment, the University of Kathmandu will set up high performance computing facilities to support fundamental research and the development of science and technology in Nepal.
Since 2012, CERN has regularly donated computing equipment that no longer meets its highly specific requirements on efficiency but is still more than adequate for less exacting environments. To date, a total of 2079 servers and 123 network switches have been donated to countries and international organizations, namely Algeria, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Senegal, Serbia, the SESAME laboratory in Jordan, and now Nepal.